


To Be Helped

by AvixiLynn91



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Spacedogs - Fandom
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Hebephilia, Isolation, Jealous Nigel (Charlie Countryman), Light Dom/sub, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Nigel (Charlie Countryman) Loves Adam Raki, Nigel can't take no for an answer, Nipple Licking, Nipple Play, Obsessive Behavior, Older Man/Younger Man, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Possessive Nigel (Charlie Countryman), References to Depression, References to Drugs, Rimming, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Slow Dancing, Stalking, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-11-21 15:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11360277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvixiLynn91/pseuds/AvixiLynn91
Summary: Released from prison, Nigel loses himself in Manhattan.It's not long before a string of events bring him to meet a young Adam, who isn't prepared for Nigel at all.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I decided to put up a "preview", if you will, of the new Spacedogs fic. I did this because I want to hear people's thoughts, as this story will contain something I've NEVER EVER written about before, which brings me to my classic (and very much needed):
> 
> *WARNING* This fic contains a young boy and older male relationship! Because of Adam's age in this fic, it will be a matter of hebephilia. However, Nigel will NOT rape Adam, will NOT be harming or manipulating Adam in ANY way.   
> So yes, Adam is underage in this fic, but I promise everything will still be consensual between these two!
> 
> If you are going to be offended by mentions of hebephilia, please do NOT read this fic, or read it with plenty of CAUTION.
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> *Huggles for all!*

**_To Be Helped_ **

**_A Spacedogs Fanfiction_ **

****

He thought they’d never let him out. Before the bars of the prison cell door slammed shut in his face in their grotesque vertical pattern, Nigel heard the guard say:

“You’ll be a fucking corpse aged past 150 years before we even think of letting you out.” The guard’s thick, chubby finger nearly jabbed at Nigel’s thin, pointed, cracked and bloodied nose, much like the guard’s baton had hours ago before Nigel had been out beaten and thrown in the prison cell.

Years had gone by, as his prison sentence was 30 years-to-life for attempted murder and assault of a police officer.

He hadn’t even really wanted to fucking shoot anyone. It had all been a ruse, a fucking joke, a play…yet here he was.

After being hauled out of the prison hospital with a few scars from the bullet the rookie, childish cop had bestowed upon him, he had barely had time for a proper trial before he knew what the fuck kind of situation he was in.

He thought Gabi would at least show up to the trial to testify against him; complain about what an abusive, monstrous, evil, horrible piece of shit pathetic excuse he was for a husband. He thought she’d show up all battered and bruised, pretending he’d been beating on her and roughing her up for years to make his sentence worse, and ultimately preventing him from ever emerging out of the prison again to look for her and Countryman.

Nigel had predicted all these things to happen, yet neither of them did. As soon as he’d been released from the hospital all bandaged up and stitched up from the gunshot wound which had grazed his skull, he had been told that Gabi and Countryman had fled Romania and were never heard from again.

They hadn’t left any notes, no messages, no phone calls, nothing. They had truly vanished into fucking thin air, and left Nigel bloodied and battered with a giant hole in his heart…well…whatever was left of his heart anyway.

Nigel thought it probably resembled a lump of coal, but he was fine and content with labeling the broken, dark piece a ‘heart’.

He hadn’t bothered to catch up on whether or not the police and investigators had managed to track Charlie Countryman and Gabi down after the first 10 months of his incarceration, and as each day and week molded into the next, he found he stopped giving a shit each time.

Gabi and Charlie Countryman soon left his thoughts as he grew accustomed to the perpetual, dull, repetitious life of prison.

He attended regular classes, where he learned French, math, and some science, he attended his therapy sessions regularly and on time, he made sure to exercise and stay out of trouble daily, slowly regaining his strength, and he made sure he spent a lot of time in the library, reading and writing.

Nigel had even visited the prison chapel a few times, but he didn’t pray or confess like some of the other inmates had done. He just felt he needed to distract himself from any thought or semblance of his past, and Nigel had done such a good job at that, that he had been called in by his caseworker and lawyer for a retrial when the appropriate date approached.

The prison psychiatrist deemed Nigel was ‘sane’, that he had been taking his medications regularly, visiting him, opening up to him, confessing his sins, all that sort of shit. The prison priest had backed this up and declared Nigel a ‘changed man’ indeed, and a man who now had made room for God and Christ in his heart.

HA!

Other witnesses also spoke up and agreed that he had stayed out of trouble, hadn’t had a violent outbreak in over 12 months, and that he was changing his ways, and seeing the errors he had made in his previous life.

Still, that wasn’t good enough, and his ass was tossed back in the cell a few days later.

Nigel didn’t care; he still went about minding his own business, and had even stayed in his cell, reading and writing political books, even when a prison riot had broken out.

Finally, 2 years after his sentencing had begun, Nigel’s lawyer had been able to get in a good word for him, and he was officially declared ready to be “released”.

It also helped having Darko and a few of his friends threaten the judge’s family and grandchildren, but hey, what were friends for?

Finally acquitted of all his crimes, Nigel was set free in the early spring.

Deciding he needed a fresh start and a fresh life, he told Darko he was going to be moving to America.

“Why the fuck would you want to go there for, Nigel? You have everything you could ever want right here, friend.” Darko sat dumbfounded when Nigel had walked into his home late one night.

“This place holds nothing but sour memories for me, Darko. My fucking wife betrayed me, and she pissed all over my fucking heart. Why the fuck would I want to overstay my fucking welcome for?”

Nigel looked out the windows of the house, his face worn out and exhausted, slightly pale, but otherwise the same old Nigel he had ever been.

“Where will you go?” Darko asked, resting both hands on his knees, folding his blonde-coloured-head down over, sighing deeply.

“America.”

So that was it.

Nigel hadn’t been aiming for any spot in particular, but he felt the need to lose himself somewhere large and over-populated. He picked the most crowded area in the States he could think of reading about; New York, Manhattan.

It wasn’t more than two weeks when he had finally rented a small-cheap-ass apartment in the closest street he could locate next to downtown so he could be in the vicinity of food, liquor, strip clubs, as well as some theaters.

As part of his release, he was required to still check-in with his therapist and parole officer, who luckily had family in New York as well, and would be in New York all summer visiting.

Weekly updates didn’t change the fact that Nigel still felt his life was meaningless and absolutely pointless.

No matter how many cigarettes he smoked, no matter how many glasses of alcohol he drowned himself in only to puke up the next morning, he still felt absolutely dead on the inside.

It was on the morning of Monday, May 18th, that Nigel had grabbed a loaded handgun from his suitcase.

He had sat up watching the sunrise for the final time, admiring how the bright orange hit the trees, the lakes, the parks, warming everything except Nigel’s old, frozen bones and muscles. He heard early signs of dawn life hitting his ears, as engines of cars turned on, children began talking and laughing as they went to school, and the footsteps of adults rang and echoed across the streets as they became busy.

Nigel looked at the gun in his hands, and loaded it with a single bullet. He sat back and listened to the chirps and tweets of all kinds of birds as they nested in the large, tall trees in the park across the street from his apartment, and he suddenly wished he could fling himself out the window and grow a pair of wings and fly off with them. Oh how he would have loved to freely fly without a single thought or care…

But reality was a fucking bitch.

Nigel decidedly place the nozzle of the gun against his right temple, and he breathed deeply a few times, picturing nothing but a large wall of pure white deep in his mind.

He didn’t want to think of Gabi, he didn’t want to think of Countryman, he didn’t want to think of Darko, his friends, or even his family.

They had been with him all his life, and some of them had brought him happiness and comfort, but others had also brought him nothing but sorrow and misery. He wasn’t going to give them anymore energy, especially now. It was time to let all that go, and bury it deeply in the past.

Feeling his feet on the solid floor, he breathed softly and calmly. He just saw white, blank, emptiness, hollowness.

Nigel closed his eyes.

He pulled the trigger.


	2. Cast Out

                                                              

**_Chapter 1_ **

 

                                                                                                                                               

The bullet never entered his skull. Nigel’s finger had tapped against the cold metal of the trigger, but a loud, abrupt knocking interrupted his actions and thoughts.

Nigel leaned his head back and exhaled slowly and deeply. He really had wanted to go through with it, and he couldn’t believe it. But his hands didn’t lie or conceal any real evidence; for the gun was still firmly held in his fingers, pointed up at the ceiling.

Sighing, Nigel stood from his seat in front of the window. He’d wanted to get a good, last scenic view on the way out, anyway.

He put his gun back in the suitcase and buried it in the bottom of his bedroom closet before closing the door.

Once he was out in the hall, he suddenly remembered he was shirtless, and he walked back into the bedroom and grabbed a white work-out-top and hurriedly put it on before another loud knock boomed forward.

“One fucking second!” Nigel growled roughly, and he unlocked the door and yanked it open. Already his morning was turning out to be pure bullshit.

Once the door was wide open, Nigel was met face-to-face with a strongly built, wide, middle-aged African American man.

The man was wearing a navy blue three piece suit, and he had very closely-cut-short greying hair. He had round, large dark brown eyes, and he had his hands deeply stuffed in his pockets.

His only piece of ID was pulled out once Nigel had been staring a moment too long, and he opened his Badge Cover to reveal himself.

“Mr. Ibanescu, my name is Jack Crawford. May I come in and speak with you?” He flashed his shiny ID and badge at Nigel, who leaned forward to squint before concluding it was real, and he stood to the side and gestured inside with a free hand.

“Knock your fuckin’ self out, Mr. Crawford.”

“Thank you.” Jack Crawford walked in, wiping his feet despite the shoes being absolutely spotless and clean. He made his way over to a small old loveseat facing a dingy old chair, which Nigel plopped himself into.

Nigel grabbed a carton of cigarettes, fishing one out while he pulled up a lighter that had been on the carpeted floor of the small apartment.

Nigel looked up to see Jack Crawford cock an inquisitive eyebrow, a small smile on his face.

“Want one?” Nigel offered, voice slightly muffled due to the cigarette held between his crooked teeth.

“No, no thank you.” Jack shook his head and folded his hands together in his lap, leaning back and looking intently at Nigel.

Nigel let out a puff of smoke once his cigarette had been lit, and he exhaled the smoke up at the ceiling, then looked down at Jack Crawford and snorted.

“Don’t fucking stare at me like that. I’ve done nothing fucking wrong.” He growled, bits of smoke flowing through his mouth and nostrils.

Jack’s smile shrunk, but remained there in spite of Nigel’s gruff voice.

“I apologize. It’s a bad habit, I guess.” He spoke deeply, looking instead at the glass coffee table, which was littered with an overflowing ashtray which held far more than 20 cigarettes already, a few loose pages of some writings, a magazine about cars and motorcycles, and a pair of keys.

“Habit?” Nigel asked, half of him wanting to get right to the point, the other half trying to stall the man just because he was the first person Nigel had spoken to since he got to the city.

“Yes, I used to work in Baltimore, Maryland at the head of the Behavioural Science unit for the FBI. I’m semi-retired now, I guess.” He spoke in a calm voice, but Nigel felt that deep down, Jack Crawford had much more to him, especially if he were to be enraged.

“Observing people is my speciality, but I’ll try to limit it when I am in your presence.” He finished with a small smile which made him appear slightly younger.

Nigel scoffed, “Is this the part where I tell you something about myself?” He half-joked. He had had enough cops down his throat to last him a lifetime. At this point, he decided to fuck with Jack, push him past his limits, test the boundaries.

Jack chuckled, “We both know that I already have plenty of information on you, Mr. Ibanescu.”

“Just call me Nigel. You make me seem like I’m some sort of a dignified man.” Nigel snapped, flicking his cigarette down onto the already filthy carpet.

Jack nodded, “Alright, Nigel. As you know, I do work with Law Enforcement. Your psychiatrist, Dr. Chilton, already sent over your case files to me. You’re a rather interesting man.”

Nigel snorted but kept listening.

“And be that as it may, I am still required by court-order to keep an eye on you. You will be required to visit me at my office once a week, for approximately one hour, to report on how your week has been, if you’ve been finding work, and so on. If you miss more than two appointments, I call up the judge, and you’ll be deported. Understand me?” He leaned in close but the table still separated them.

Nigel looked at Jack’s eyes, and noted how dark they suddenly appeared. Jack Crawford indeed was a very dangerous man if it came to it, and Nigel felt he didn’t need any trouble…for now.

“I understand, Mr. Crawford.”

Jack smirked, but his glare remained vicious and menacing. “Call me Jack, Nigel. You make me seem like I’m some sort of a dignified man.”

The joke fell flat, but Nigel smiled anyway, though it was a sarcastic smile.

“I understand, Jack.” He said softly, stubbing his cigarette out, suddenly nervous and high strung, and his cigarette wasn’t even halfway through.

“Good. Now, there is a new program up and running, and I’d like for you to be a volunteer to try it out.” Jack clasped his hands together and then brushed off some dirt and dust from his kneecaps, eyes still on Nigel’s.

Nigel shook his head.

“It’d look so much better for your case, Nigel.” Jack warned, head tilted down, but eyes still trained upward on Nigel.

“Fuck it, fine. What is it?” Nigel shrugged, folding his arms across his chest, trying to contain his anger from spilling over.

Jack smiled, easily able to read through the displayed body language. “I actually helped coordinate and design it myself. You’ll be set up with a high school student-”

Nigel interrupted with a chipped laugh.

“…to write and exchange a method of communication for the sole purpose of enlightening the youth and teaching them about how well and how successful restorative justice in our society is.” Jack finished, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs comfortably like he had all the power in the world.

Nigel glared at him. “So like a fucking pen pal, huh?” He asked, thinking the whole idea was a bunch of bullshit already, and it hadn’t even begun.

Jack nodded, “Yes. You are to write only typed or handwritten letters. You may NOT go any further than that. You may NOT disclose your address, or request theirs, you may NOT disclose information regarding your crimes, your trial, or any other personal information. And finally, you may NOT write about anything illegal, or facilitate or encourage deviant behaviour. Am I understood, Nigel?”

Nigel glared deeper, certain that he was about to explode right then and there in a blind fury of fists and blood.

“Understood.”

………………….

Adam stirred when he heard his alarm clock buzzing to life at his night table. It jolted him out of his sleep, and he reached over to turn it off.

He sat up in bed, his light brown hair falling over his ears messily. He ran a hand through it, and heard his stomach growl. He could smell the breakfast his mother and father were making downstairs.

Quickly getting ready, he finished his morning routine of showering and brushing his teeth and combing his hair. He then hurriedly put on his neatly ironed and folded orange space-ship T-shirt.

If there was one thing Adam loved most in the world, it was space and astrology. He was almost certain he was going to grow up and become an astronaut. He knew that was something his parents would be proud of.

He put on his jeans quickly and grabbed his knapsack sitting by the edge of his bed with his books and notes already neatly arranged and packed from the night before, and he bounded down the steps.

Adam’s parents both greeted him with loving kisses and hugs, and they all sat down to eat while Adam had his milk and bran cereal, as he usually did every morning.

Adam’s mother, a woman in her late 30s with medium length blonde hair, ruffled his hair as he ate, and she gave a small giggle.

“Not when I’m having cereal, mom!” Adam smiled, but looked down at his bowl instead.

Adam’s father, a man also in his late 30s with dark brown short hair, looked up from his newspaper and cleared his throat.

Adam looked his way, but didn’t meet his eyes.

“Adam, look up at your mother.” His father stated calmly, but firmly.

Adam had a form of high functioning autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. Adam was skilled and highly intelligent in many subjects and topics, but he was a little…different…when it came to socialization and the experiences and displays of human emotions.

Adam had trouble understanding and relaying back sarcasm, expressions, jokes, and examples, but otherwise, was headed for a bright future.

He still had trouble making friends at school, which upset his mother, but luckily, their upstairs neighbour-a young girl the same age as Adam-named Elizabeth Buchwald, had taken a great shine to Adam, and the two had formed a fast and tight friendship. 

Beth usually made sure Adam wasn't bullied at school, especially since they had all moved onto their first year of high school now. 

Adam finally met his mother's eyes, after many long minutes and painful pauses of silence. 

Adam's mother's soft green eyes warmed his heart, and he smiled widely at her before resuming to eat his cereal quickly.

"Thank you, Adam." She said, pleased at the efforts her son made every day. 

Looking up at the clock, Adam's father gently tapped his son's hand. 

"Adam, I have to be at work soon, please finish your cereal, else I won't have time to drop you off at school and you'll have to take the bus with Beth." 

Adam grabbed the cereal bowl in both hands and dunked the contents back in his mouth rapidly, some of the milk dripping down his chin and onto his lap messily.

His father sighed and his mother repressed another giggle. 

"Adam, you just turned 15; you shouldn't be so scared of taking the bus. All the other kids do it too." His father grabbed his tie and put it on quickly and expertly, watching Adam wipe at his lips and put his cereal bowl in the sink and cleaning up after himself.

Adam smiled shyly, his wonderful blue eyes staring down and tracing a pattern on the blue tablecloth. "I'm ready, dad." 

His father looked at Adam's discarded knapsack and sighed. "Really, Adam?"

Adam immediately snatched the bag off the floor and put it on quickly. 

"Okay, ready now." He smiled at the top of his father's head and walked quickly towards the front door.

………………….

Adam's father dropped him off at the side of the school near the buses where the other kids were getting off, and Adam patiently waited until most of the older boys had gone in before he got out of his father's car and ran for the front doors.

He had barely made it inside when he heard a loud squeal, and he looked up to see two thin, outstretched arms. 

His best friend Beth grabbed him and hugged him tightly, making Adam gasp and leap back. Adam wasn't entirely comfortable with physical contact and even eye contact, so anything abrupt and out of the blue had to be approached with care and caution.

Beth, a young, beautiful girl with long flowing dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and eyebrows gasped, and she backed off Adam. She was wearing a green dress and light brown sandals, and she held her books at her side.

"Adam! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to freak you out!" She cried, looking ashamed of herself.

Adam offered her a small smile, but it was cast at the floor instead. "It's okay Beth, I am happy to see you too."

She quickly turned to a smile and they turned to walk down the long halls of the crowded, busy high school to Adam's locker.

Students ran around, some chasing each other, some hanging out in their regular groups on the floors by their lockers, while others leaned huddled together by the walls. Teachers hurried to get to their classes and set up for the day, looking fed up and tired already.

Adam stopped at his locker, slowly putting in the combination while Beth grabbed some gum out of her bag and offered one to Adam.

"No thank you Beth, I had a big breakfast." Adam opened his locker door and grabbed the books he needed once he looked at his timetable.

Beth tapped his shoulder again. "Hey! I have some weird news to tell you, Adam! This morning, when I got in, the Principal called me into his office!"

Adam slightly frowned, "Are you in trouble?"

She shook her head, "Gosh no, Adam! I'm never in trouble!" She giggled playfully and gleefully. 

"Anyway, he said that I have been chosen for this weird project where I have to write and be pen pals with someone who is going to tell me about law enforcement and special programs for people who come out of prison back into society." She finished, picking at her light pink nails.

Adam frowned a bit deeper, but his voice betrayed no emotions. "Why do you have to do that?"

Beth paused in her observation of her nails. "I have no idea. All Principal Morton said is that if I don't do it, he'll call my parents."

Adam nodded once, turning to walk to their first class for the day. "Okay, then I guess you have to do it."

Beth huffed and dragged her feet. "Adam I don't want to! It sounds so dumb and so boring!" She clenched her eyebrows tightly on her forehead and whined, kicking at a random locker.

"As if I don't have enough homework as it is!" She stood, waiting for their teacher to usher them inside.

Adam had had a big crush on Beth for a while, but he didn't want to let her know. He had been planning on asking her out by Prom so they could go together as a couple, but he knew that wasn't for a long time and he wasn't comfortable with approaching Beth as more than a friend for now. He figured he could win her heart and trust beyond friendship if he did nice things for her and kept her happy.

Adam suddenly had the greatest idea to win Beth's heart and feelings. He turned directly to her once the teacher had opened the classroom door, and the bell buzzed, signaling students to be inside their classrooms.

"Beth! I'll write your project for you! I love writing and I am good at it!" He said with as much enthusiasm as he could, eyes lighting up and widening.

Beth gasped and then squealed again, throwing her arms around Adam tightly and hugging him. 

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Thank you Adam!" She cheered, still holding him tightly in her small arms.

"I'll tell Principal Morton that I want to do it, and I know he'll let me, because I was on the writing team, and won Writing Club last year." Adam continued, but didn't mind Beth's arms around him for once.   
  
"You're the best, Adam! You're such a sweetheart!" 


	3. Breaking The Ice...Or Not

**_Chapter 2_ **

Principal Morton had found it odd that Adam had volunteered to take over Beth’s writing project, but he allowed it nonetheless. He reluctantly pulled out a Permission and Assignment Description sheet, which Adam’s parents had to sign and return by the end of the week before Adam could begin his assignment.

Adam headed to his locker quickly at the end of the day, giving Beth parting glances, and a small parting wave while he looked out at the parking lot waiting for his father to come pick him up.

A few minutes late, his father’s silver volkswagen polo pulled up and honked at him to get his attention.

Adam got off the little parking lot bench and made a run for the car, plopping himself in the back seats.

Without saying a word to his father, he pulled out the permission slip and threw it at his father in the driver’s seat.

………………………………….

Adam’s mother read through the permission form once more, sitting beside her husband on their front porch swing, her blonde hair flowing behind her, dancing in the wind to any tune and rhythm nature provided.

Her eyeliner was slightly smudged off, and she seemed rather tired; her legs kicked up on a stool, her shoulders slumped forward, and her breathing soft, but steady.

Once she had completed reading the form, she set it down flatly on her lap, and looked up at Adam, eyes full of questions.

Adam avoided her gaze, and she leaned close and gently hugged her son to her chest.

“Adam, sweetie, what makes you want to write letters to a previously incarcerated person?” She rubbed her son’s back gently, while Adam’s father gently grabbed a corner of the page, and slid it away from the lap of his wife’s jeans.

He read through it, his light brown eyebrows slightly set tightly on his brow.

“Your mother has a good point, Adam. This assignment is rather…strange.” He agreed, flipping to the back where the signatures were required to be.

Adam didn’t move, but he looked at the top of the swing. “I want to do this. I love writing.” He stated cooly, feeling his feet dragging on the wood of the front porch as the swing rocked gently, the edges and bars creaking and groaning.

“Yeah but to a criminal, Adam?”

“Ex-con.” His wife supplied.

Adam’s father rubbed his forehead, his skin appearing to be extremely wrinkled in the process. “Yeah, whatever. I still don’t know…”

“Principal Morton will be monitoring every letter, and the originator of the program, Mr. Jack Crawford, will also have access to the letters before they are even sent, there’s nothing to worry about, dad.” Adam explained calmly, reaching a finger up to tap against the bars of the swing set.

“I’d feel a lot more comfortable if everyone in the class had to do this assignment too.” Adam’s father murmured more so to himself, but his wife looked at him and offered a small smile.

“Bring me a pen, Adam, I’ll sign.” She kissed the top of her son’s head, then Adam ran inside the house, wearing a grin that mirrored a cat that had caught a canary.

Her husband rested a hand on her knee, and draped another over her shoulder.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, dear?” He asked, rubbing her shoulders softly and slowly.

She nodded and wove her hand around her husband’s, their wedding rings clinking together in harmony.

“It's making Adam happy and excited, and I just always want to see him happy.”

Her husband smiled in return, but there was a shade of a cloud of concern growing behind his eyes.

He wasn’t the only one who held that expression, however.

………………………………….

Adam returned the form, signed and sealed neatly in an envelope the next day back to school. He pulled the white envelope out of his bag once he opened his locker, Beth standing next to him and observing him curiously.

She wore loopy earrings today and had her hair held back in a single braid. She wore blue jean shorts, white All-Star Converse, and a matching white top.

Adam grabbed the envelope and held it to his chest proudly beaming. “Ready to go to the office?” He asked Beth.

She nodded, but bit on her lower lip, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

“Adam…do you feel right doing this?” She asked as they began walking down the stairwell towards the main office.

Adam kept walking, trying to avoid eye contact with a few 11th grade bullies who often picked on him and called him nasty names whenever Beth wasn’t around to stick up for him. Beth usually yelled at them and chased them off, sometimes giving them a good hard kick in the backside while they scampered off. She was a bit shorter than most girls her age, but she didn’t let that deter her at all, and she made up for her height in her spirit and attitude.

Adam didn’t want to tell anyone how amazing he found Beth to be. He thought it would seem silly if he admitted to feeling protected and safe around a small girl, but she had earned his respect, trust, and loyalty nevertheless.

However, now that Beth appeared troubled, Adam felt a bit uneasy himself. Beth was one of the only people he could really read and identify emotions with, and now that she seemed bothered about something, Adam slowed his pace as they eyed the ‘MAIN OFFICE’ sign in black capslock letters ahead a few feet.

Adam stopped when they reached the front doors. Behind the glass insertion, he eyed a few receptionists seated down, typing away and every so often looking up ahead angrily over their glasses outside at the noisy students outside in the forum and halls.

Adam shivered.

“I feel…I don’t know how I feel, Beth.” He finished, looking down at his brown loafers and sighing.

For once he was absolutely confused and lost as to how he was feeling. He normally didn’t go on too long about how he was feeling in front of anyone; not even his parents. But he found himself wanting to explain everything to Beth, and yet, when he opened his mouth, he couldn’t.

Beth smiled a half-smile and looked at the doors.

“Let’s go.”

………………………………….

Nigel’s cell phone rang so loudly that it jolted him awake. He realized he had fallen asleep on his couch in front of the TV, which was still on, an empty bottle of alcohol sitting in his lap.

The phone was also in his lap, and it had buzzed so hard that it knocked the empty bottle down onto the carpet with a dull, heavy “THUD!”.

Nigel hissed in pain, both from burning in his eyes, and a low, dull throbbing in his head. The sun was almost slapping him in the face with how bright and hot the rays fell on his five-o’clock shadow covered face.

He moved his hands up to rub his temples, forehead, and down to his nose. His fingers inched their way over to his cheeks, and he sat up and winced, hissing in pain.

Nigel was fully awake now, and he stood, walking abruptly to the bathroom, and looking at himself in the mirror.

Oh…yeah…

He couldn’t remember anything at first when he woke up, but then he remembered he was beyond drunk, walking into a bar last night, attempting to pick up a hot brunette beauty. Everything had gone fine; Nigel had bought her enough alcohol to make her tipsy and dizzy, he had lead her giggling all the way to an empty stall in the bathroom, and she had been seconds away from unzipping him and pulling him out of his trousers for the first blowjob he’d received in years, when the bathroom stall's door burst open, and a large, bulky beast of a man with a shaved head and multiple tattooes faced them both. They had been caught red handed; Nigel with his belt off, pants halfway down his hips, she had been on her knees, bra off, tits out, nipples pressed against Nigel’s zipper. The man had taken it from there, and he had introduced himself as her boyfriend.

Well…his fist had anyway. It had met both of Nigel’s cheekbones with “cracks” and “snaps”, each blow making Nigel’s head slam backwards into the bathroom walls. He had almost felt his brain turn to mush and slide down his nose and out into his hands, but when he looked down after removing his hands from his nose, he found it to be only blood.

A fountain full.

He had called a cab, bleeding all over the backseat, decorating the seats with his own special brand of a crimson, ruby coloured pattern, earning plenty of Hindi cuss words hurled at him, but he still threw the driver his fee in a few bills, and limped back to his apartment, to his room, all the way on the 4th floor.

It had been a night of hell.

Nigel hadn’t expected the man to be perfectly okay with him hauling his woman off into a dirty, stench-filled stall, but then again, she hadn’t exactly mentioned the part about having a boyfriend either.

Nigel washed his face very carefully, avoiding the purple bruises on his cheeks, and his slightly swollen nose.

He grabbed a cloth and dabbed away the water, wincing and hissing through clenched teeth when he felt how sore his face really was.

“Fucking pig fucker.” Nigel growled and waited until the rest of his sore spots dried off before walking back to the couch and angrily tearing the phone away from the seat and into his open hands.

He swiped it on to find that he had a missed call from an Unknown number.

Odd.

A notification popped up that stated he had a new message in his voicemail inbox.

Sitting down impatiently, Nigel pressed 1 to listen to the new message.

_“Hello Nigel, this is Jack. I realize it’s early, but I need you to give me a call when you’re available. My number is 226-506-7394, extension 403. I won’t need more than 5 minutes of your time, thanks.”_

“Then record a fucking five minute long fucking message!” Nigel screamed, turning off the rest of the messages which he had never got around to deleting.

He listened to the message again, writing down Jack’s cell number quickly, and then called.

Jack picked up after two rings.

“Crawford.” Jack must have been heading somewhere quiet, for the first thing Nigel heard in the background when he had connected were about a billion fucking voices in the background.

He heard a door clicking shut, which confirmed his estimate, and finally silence had welcomed his aching ears.

Realizing he had been silent for far longer than necessary, Nigel spoke up.

“It’s Nigel…hi.” He cursed himself internally for being so awkward on the phone. Nigel was a better communicator in person, but Darko tended to disagree with him anyway.

He could almost hear Jack’s eyebrow rise up in a mocking manner.

“Glad you got my message. I wanted to inform you that our first appointment will be this Friday at 4 PM. Also, I need you to begin the letter by today in a way that will break the ice, if you will, between yourself and the high school student we’ve selected for this program.”

Nigel felt his head swimming and pounding, and he rubbed his temple with a free hand while he held the phone against his ear with the other. His fingers pressed into his skull and he nearly gasped out in pain, but bit down on his tongue when he realized Jack had paused, waiting for his answer.

“Uh…yeah. I can do that. Who’s the student?” He asked, and then found himself immediately regretting it.

Jack cleared his throat from the other side of the line. “Nigel, the student is not obligated to tell you their name, but it is a female student…wait, I apologize, there has been a switch as of late, and I only found out about it half an hour ago.”

“Huh?” Nigel asked dumbly, reaching for a bottle of aspirin he had abandoned on the coffee table beneath his car and motorcycle magazines.

“The student is male, he is 15 years old, and that’s all you need to know. Please don’t ask for his name, address, cellphone number-”

“Yeah yeah yeah. We already went over this, it sunk in my thick fucking skull pretty well.” Nigel waved his hands in the air dramatically, rolling his eyes and making his way to the kitchen, filling an empty coffee cup with water and taking the aspirin.

He felt himself retching. Why had he chosen to take the pill on an empty fucking stomach?

“Well, just making sure you’re aware of the rules,” Jack spoke a bit hurriedly, signaling the conversation was going to come to an end soon, and thank fuck for that.

“…I will of course be reading everything you write before the letter is sent off, so please keep that in mind should you get any…wild ideas…” He warned.

Nigel violently (and with much more force than he intended) threw the cup in the sink, and it smashed against a plate, chipping the edge of it.

“Everything alright?” Jack asked, unable to hide the mirth in his voice.

Nigel had never wanted to reach through the phone and strangle someone so badly.

“Yeah…just making coffee.”

“Hmm. Well, just write down something short and sweet, and if it is easier for you, you can email the draft to me before I send it off.”

“Type it?” Nigel asked, searching for his carton of cigarettes, feeling his headache getting worse by the second.

“Sure. That would be easier anyway. Unless, you would prefer sending it to me through the mail.”

Nigel snorted, running a hand through his unkempt, slightly unwashed hair, wincing at how greasy and dirty he felt. He needed a fucking shower.

“No, I’ll just…type it…”

“You have a laptop?” Jack’s inquiry made Nigel’s blood boil, and he couldn’t hold back on his anger.

“Yes I have a fucking laptop!” He spat angrily, “…I’m not some kind of homeless pathetic fuck!”

Jack was silent for a few minutes before he sighed calmly.

“That wasn’t my intention, though I do apologize for offending you. Perhaps your anger can be a good topic of conversation this Friday.”

Nigel was about to interrupt when Jack spoke all too quickly.

“Remember, Friday at 4 PM, don’t be late. Have a great day, Nigel.”

He hung up without letting Nigel respond at all.

………………………………….

Nigel sat in front of the laptop Darko had let him borrow after he had thrown his out the window in anger at Gabi and Charlie Countryman.

The bright screen lights were pissing him off more and more by each passing second, and he had been sitting on the uncomfortable chair with the wooden seat digging into his ass for more than an hour now, and all he had managed to write on the blank Word Document page was:

_Hi there…_

Nigel looked at the other keys on the keyboard and cursed out loud, not sure how to proceed next.

This was such an odd thing to do, and he couldn’t remember the last note he had ever written. It’s not like he had tons of friends and family who were writing to him when he was on ice, locked away.

“Fucking letters.” Nigel hissed, typing away randomly, letting his anger guide him.

He couldn’t believe how fucking shitty his life and his luck had gotten. First, Gabi being a betraying whore, Countryman being a pussy and a useless child, at that, Darko not managing to get his shit together and find that lousy tape, all that money they had lost recently, Nigel being chased by the cops, shot, and brutally beaten over and over again.

AND NOW THIS!

Nigel kept typing, his fingers flying like a wild demon, his anger being the author of what he created on the screen.

He felt absolutely backed into a corner, and like an animal, the only thing he could do to defend himself was to strike back and attack. He had lost everything and everyone, so what was one more random, anonymous student?

No…a fucking child.

A child who probably hadn’t even had his balls drop yet, couldn’t grow leg or pubic hair to save his life, probably didn’t have a moustache, and probably had to have his mother pack his clothes and lunch for him.

Nigel suddenly recalled his own childhood, and he found himself too jealous of a child he had never even met or seen.

Nigel’s own mother hadn’t been without love, but she never did things for him like bake cookies, pack his lunch before school, prepare good, healthy meals, or even sit back and talk to him. She had been a provider, but nothing more.

He slammed his fists down on either side of the table holding up the laptop, stopping in his fury of typing to read what he had written.

_Hi there…._

_You’re probably wondering what the fuck to say to me, as I am wondering what the fuck to say to a puny little scrawny fuck like yourself. How does it feel to have a mommy and a daddy to come home to every night who love you and put food in your belly? You probably don’t even tell them you love and appreciate them, do you? Do you even give it a single moment’s worth of a thought while you put on and tie your super pearly white laces like a good son and drag your bags and books to your school where you sit like a browner jotting notes down studiously at the fucking head of your class? I probably bet you’d kiss anyone’s ass if they asked you and if you got something special out if it. Well, let me tell you this, kid. If you think the world runs like this, you’re in for a lifetime of shit and pain. Life’s a bitch and it is full of regret and heartbreaks, and you’re gonna end up learning the hard way, and you’ll grow to become an old, bitter fuck like me._  
  
_Sincerely_ ,

 _Full of hate,_  
  
_Nigel_.

Nigel sat back and smiled at his handiwork.

Why did he give a shit if he was going to land in hot water? It’s not like he had anything else on the table to lose. What was a few more years in prison? Free meals? Free showers? Abusing the tax payer’s money? Why should he care?

Nigel attached Jack’s email address in the TO subject line, and copied and pasted the letter in the message portion of the email.

“Signed and sealed with a large ‘Fuck you’ to you, Mr. Crawford.”

Nigel snickered, playing with his carton of cigarettes, tossing them from his left hand to his right hand, in a mock game of “catch” with himself.

Nigel stopped, suddenly realizing how sad and pathetic his life was that he had to play “catch” with himself.

He flung the cigarettes down onto the table again, and moved his fingers on the fingerpad.

The cursor obediently moved over to hover over SEND, ready for Nigel's next command. 

Nigel paused and looked over his email again, licking his slightly chapped lips in thought.

Why was a part of him telling him that this wasn’t the wisest thing to do?

Why did he care??!?!

Nigel pressed down gently over the SEND button, but then lifted his fingers up and away off the fingerpad.

Was it really worth being deported over? Sent to jail over? All because of some stupid fucking kid he’d never see or hear from?

Yes…

Nigel once again pressed his fingers gently on the fingerpad.

………………………………….

Adam stretched his arms and hands, rotating them in small circular motions, easing some cramps and tightness he had developed in his fingers and arms after an hour and half worth of editing and typing his introduction letter to the ex-criminal person.

He felt a few of his knuckles cracking, and he yawned. It was nearly midnight, but he had meant to stay up all night-however long it took-to finish the letter.

He had been excited about it all day, coming home to hurriedly eat his broccoli and vegetables with chicken, only to race upstairs to his room after the table and dishes were cleared and cleaned, skipping out on his favorite show, ‘Inside The Actor’s Studio’.

He had been cooped up all evening in his room, picking out the best font style and size, making sure everything was legible, professional looking, and most important of all: mature looking. He had wanted to make a great first impression, even through a letter.

Adam read over his letter, whispering the words as he smiled through the top and bottom of the letter he had put all his heart and spirit into.

_Hello Mr.,_

_I’m a fifteen year old student, and I don’t write many letters. Last year, I was the head of Writing Club, and I even won a few awards for some things I wrote. I mainly write poems, short stories, and sometimes I try to write historical retellings of World War 1 and 2, but we just started learning more about WW2 in history class, so I am waiting for more information to write on._

_What do you enjoy writing about?_

_I’ll tell you about some things I am interested in._

_I love reading and writing about space. The most recent book on space I have read is called 'Asteroid Hunters' by Carrie Nugent._

_I am not done reading everything about it, but I think you would like it. If you go to the library, you should be able to find a copy, and maybe we can read it together._

_I’d love to hear your thoughts about it, and maybe after, we can read something you like and something you would enjoy._

_That is how I want a friendship to be; you and I learn new things about what the other likes, and it will be really fun in the end. Kind of like a brother I never had._

_I am a single child, by the way. I don’t have any siblings, although if I did, I’d really have liked to have an older brother because I sometimes get picked on at school, but I have a friend named Beth who really always sticks up for me and doesn’t let me be bullied._

_I really like her._

_I want us to really get along too, so I am going to wait for your letter and response._

_Thank you for reading, and I look forward to your response._

_I hope you can get a copy of the book!_

_Best,  
Adam_

Adam hit ‘Save’ and moved the copy of the letter to his ‘Documents’ folder.

A knock soon came from the door, and footsteps followed. “I like it, son.”

Adam gasped, whipping around to find his father standing behind him, leaning down, peering over his shoulder with a proud smile on his face.

Adam smiled once he had gotten over the shock. “Do you think it is good? I didn’t find any spelling errors in it, and I ran spellcheck and grammar check three times.”

“Excellent, Adam.” His father gently clapped his son on the back and then walked to his bed, pulling back the sheets and moving the pillows aside in an orderly fashion.

“It’s late, Adam. Time for bed.” He announced, already dressed in his nightwear.

Adam nodded, shutting his laptop down properly before climbing into his bed, allowing his father to ruffle his hair as he tucked him in.

“Goodnight Adam.” His father set his books aside neatly on his desk, and walked out, flipping off the light.

“Sleep well.”

“Dad wait!” Adam cried, sitting up in bed, the covers flying up over him and uncovering his little body.

Adam’s dad stopped and flipped on the light switch again, looking concerned as he walked quickly back to Adam’s bedside.

“Everything alright Adam?” He asked, his chest rising and falling rapidly, seemingly panicked and alarmed.

Adam looked at the bathroom down the hall shyly.

“I forgot to brush my teeth…”


	4. You've Got Male

                                                                

**_Chapter 3_ **

**__ **

Nigel deleted the entire letter. He had to. Of course he had to. He didn’t want that awful Jack Crawford down his back about the rules and ethics of what he was allowed to write and what he wasn’t allowed to write. It’d all be a foolish move, and all because he had chosen to let his anger get the better of him. He wasn’t going to allow his anger to buy him more jail time.

Nigel stared at the blank screen again, once again stuck in the same rut he’d been in last night before he typed out the letter.

A plate of scrambled eggs sat to his left, cold, mushy, and probably way too nasty to eat, while he held a cigarette in his right hand, not inhaling; just staring emptily.

His eyes were squinted and had small dark bags beneath them. Nigel looked at the time on the laptop and hissed.

It was almost 7 in the morning.

He had to wrap this shit up, finish his breakfast, and get his day going. Darko had requested him to call, just to check up, make sure he hadn’t died in his apartment alone.

Nigel suddenly half-wished he were dead, but then he put out his cigarette and began writing.

He would make it short, simple, and sweet. Then he wouldn’t land in any hot water with Jack, he wouldn’t piss off the kid, and he wouldn’t have a large headache. Everyone would win and be happy.

Nigel quickly typed out the most formal and polite introduction he could think of:

_Hello,_

_So we’re going to be writing back and forth to each other. I’ve never done something like this before, so it may take time for me to get used to this. I know I’m older than you and I haven’t been to school in years._

_I’m sure a lot has changed since I was in school, so what’s it all like anyway?_

_Anyway I don’t know what else to really write, so I’ll let you pick something to write about and we’ll see how that goes, I guess._

_Bye_

_N._

Nigel knew deep down it was the worst thing he’d ever both written and read, but it’d have to do for now.

He attached Jack’s email address within the heading and TO headline, and sent it off this time for real before attacking his eggs.

………………………………….

Adam was late for the first time in years for school. He had somehow slept through his alarm, and his father didn’t have enough time to give him a ride to school.

Adam’s mother had already packed his lunch and she too had gone off to work, leaving a little note for Adam in his lunch box.

Adam began panicking. He dressed hurriedly, combing his hair quickly and a bit too roughly, pulling on the dark brown strands a bit too harshly with the comb and wincing as he hurried to throw on a deep blue shirt with his matching deep blue jeans, not caring that they were slightly wrinkly as they were fresh out of the dryer.

Adam had gotten so excited over his new pen pal that he had fallen asleep a little later than he normally would have, and the result was sleeping in right through his alarm and possibly missing the bus.

No! He had to remain optimistic, and he had to quickly grab his breakfast and finish it. Adam never went to school on an empty stomach, and he didn’t want to start today without a proper meal. His mother had instructed him to always be healthy and have well-rounded meals, and Adam seldom disobeyed his parents.

He ran down the steps once he was ready, and brought out his milk and cereal and tossed the bran in the bowl and poured a little bit of milk on it before downing it all down in a few minutes. He wiped the sides of his mouth with his sleeves and grabbed his bag, racing to fling open the front door...only to find the bus already passing his house and down the street, making a right turn towards another street.

Adam stopped, froze to the spot, and immediately grabbed his cellphone out of his pocket, tears already pouring from his eyes without his knowledge and control. He began panicking even more, and his breaths came out in small gasps and pants.

Adam was a boy of habit, and he hated breaking his habits, and he most of all hated change in his life. This was a form of change, and Adam began feeling too overwhelmed, and he didn’t know what to do. He quickly called his mother, and she picked up after a few rings.

“Adam, sweetheart, my meeting’s about to begin! What’s wrong?” Her voice was calm and soothing, yet urgent.

Adam breathed and cried loudly in response, and his mother gasped worriedly.

“Adam, sweetheart, talk to me. What happened?” She asked calmly and gently, trying to coax an answer out of him.

Adam wiped his eyes quickly and hiccupped out a broken, shaky response; “I m-missed th-the b-b-bus mom!”

Adam’s mother was silent for a second, then she spoke, still calm and loving as ever; “Adam, it’s alright, these things sometimes happen. I’m not angry at you. You have to get walking, sweetheart.”

Adam shook his head even though his mother couldn’t see it over the phone.

“No! I can’t! I don’t want to be late! I already am late enough!” He stomped a few times on the porch and gripped his bag tightly, pulling at the strap as his tears grew heavier and hotter against his red, flushed cheeks.

“Adam! Calm down my love, breathe in, one, two, three…” Adam always loved talking to his mother, because she knew exactly what to say to calm him down. He followed her instructions and breathed deeply, closing his eyes for a few minutes and only focusing on his mother’s soothing voice until his heart had steadied and his eyes felt less watery and burning.

“Adam, you have to just walk down the street and turn right, and if you keep walking for ten minutes, you will reach your school. Keep a time of it on your phone, Adam. Ten minutes exactly and you will be there. I will call your teacher for you right now and explain what happened, and you won’t get an absent mark on your attendance sheet.”

Adam smiled and wiped the rest of his tears away.

“Thank you, mom.”

“I love you Adam, now I have to get going, sweetheart. My meeting just started!”

“Okay…bye mom.”

He hung up and slowly began walking, feeling a lot calmer, but still rather upset, as he knew he’d be a bit later than ten minutes, for he had to drop the letter off at a mailbox…

………………………………….

Nigel nearly walked straight into the door the man ahead of him held open for him, his forehead just a hair’s length away from slamming into the metal frame of the coffee shop door.

Nigel had had a rough morning, to put it lightly.

After he had sent off the email and letter to Jack, he had showered, shaved his three-day-old stubble, and dressed into a cream coloured polo shirt; the collar propped up, and sunglasses pulled down over his face to hide his tired, pissed-off glare he threw at everyone and everything his path. He wore dark grey dress pants and a pair of black dress shoes Darko had bought him as a gift for his trip to America.

Nigel had been trying to reach Darko all fucking morning, but the fucker either refused to pick up, or was somewhere else without his phone near him. Nigel rang for the tenth time in less than an hour, and was about to throw the phone against the ground as he looked down to hang up, nearly walking into the already-held-open-door.

The man ahead of him smirked like a prick. “Watch yourself.” He walked ahead of Nigel, shaking his head back and forth judgmentally.

“Kiss my fucking ass.” Nigel growled under his breath, shoving his phone in his left pocket before walking inside the coffee shop, and already feeling more awake and alert when the overpowering potent stench of caffeine hit his nose.

The coffee shop was quite large in comparison to the shops in Bucharest. Many of those shops were family-owned, family-run, but these were large franchises. The shop Nigel had walked in was highly recommended, and the only reason he had walked into this one was because he had overheard two women waiting for a bus near where he had parked his car speak of the amazing cappuccinos they had purchased from Starbucks.  

Nigel wasn’t one for cappuccinos, but he wanted to give the espressos a shot, at least. He held back a yawn as he looked around the semi-large line ahead of him which was made up of many young men and women pointing ahead at the large racks and stacks of muffins, cookies, donuts and cakes on display behind the glass of the counter, and waitresses and cashiers running around looking tired and holding up coffee pots, stirring them and pouring the beverage into the ordered cups.

New York was indeed a dull, yet busy area if Nigel had ever seen one. Most of all, he wished the air conditioning would be shut the fuck off, for he was shaking, and still not used to the temperature change of New York.

Nigel felt his phone vibrating, and he all-too-eagerly pulled it out to answer Darko’s call.

“Finally, you son of a bitch, I’ve been trying to reach you all fucking morning!” He hissed between clenched teeth, not giving two shits as a young couple and the man who had held open the door for him turned and threw him shocked and disgusted glares.

Darko snickered like a kid who was having too much fun teasing. “Pardon me, your Royalty, I’ve been a little tied up handling the mess of a so-called-business you fucking left behind for me to fucking pick up and deal with! A thousand apologies if you’re not first on my fucking list of priorities anymore.”

Sarcastic little bitch. Nigel growled deeply in his throat and was about to answer, when he was brushed very roughly aside. Caught off-guard, Nigel stumbled to the left and tripped over his own feet, and his phone fell out of his hands and crashed onto the tiled floor of the coffee shop below.

“FUCK!” Nigel screamed and dashed after the phone, picking it up to inspect for damages. The call had disconnected, but the screen miraculously had not been cracked or broken. The phone was still in working condition, and Nigel wanted some fucking answers.

He moved back into his place in line, looking up ahead through the tinted lens of the glasses, trying to angrily locate the shit stain who had caused this random, abrupt interruption.

Nigel saw the cashier waving his hands away at someone at the front of the line in front of him, and he saw a few of the customers growing weary and fed-up with someone.

“Move it, please!”

“I have to be at work now!”

“Get to the back of the line, we all have been waiting for our turn!”

Mixed voices of anger, impatience, panic, frustration, annoyance, and exhaustion all hit Nigel’s ears at once.

He moved to the right to take a peek at what was going on at the head of the line, and his eyes fell on the back of a slightly curly mop of dark brown hair and a blue knapsack back.

Nigel moved a few steps up closer, but he was still too far away to really see what exactly had happened. He was able to hear the growing frustration in the cashier’s voice, however.

“Kid, this is a coffee shop; not a library. If you’re lost, I suggest you get a map. New York’s not that hard to figure out. Now go, I have a lot of shit to do.”

“I was at the post office, I mailed my letter, but I forgot to ask how to get back to the school! I am really lost and very late! Please, I need some directions! I would call my mother and ask her because she is always nice and helps me out, but she is at a meeting and I can’t interrupt her else she will get fired because of me!”

Nigel took a few steps closer, ears carefully trained on a young man’s frightened voice.

“Move it!” Suddenly, the customer directly behind the young man grabbed the straps of his knapsack, and yanked him hard backwards away from the cashier’s desk.

Nigel flew into a frenzy. He raced up ahead and violently dug his strong hands in the arms of the middle aged male customer and leaned his head close into his.

The customer was a man slightly shorter than Nigel, and wore a thick vest, had a thick grey moustache and beard, and black dress pants.

“Get your hands off him right now.” Nigel breathed thickly in a warning down at the man, who had begun squirming in his grip.

“Get YOUR hands off me first!” The man retorted back, still holding tightly to the straps of the knapsack.

“Last warning, asshole.” Nigel spoke so only the customer could hear, the whole coffee shop deathly silent and still, as if waiting for an outburst.

The man looked down at the young boy and after many long seconds, he let go. The young boy backed off immediately, eyes red and slightly watery, sniffling softly.

Nigel carefully and slowly let go of the man’s thick arms and scoffed down at him.

“Picking a fucking fight with a kid, what a hero you are.”

“He held up the fucking line! You saw!” The man screamed back, nostrils flaring and white nose hairs that should have been cut months ago poking out at Nigel, as if threatening his livelihood.

Nigel felt his stomach turn.

“It doesn’t matter, you don’t fucking attack a kid, you moron. Have a nice fucking day, all of you disgusting scumbags.” Nigel turned and shook his head, moving towards the doors of the coffee shop.

He had made his way halfway down the line when he stopped and peered down at the kid he had saved from being manhandled.

“You okay, kid?” Nigel asked, faced with only the top of the kid’s head as he held his face in his hands, shoulders shaking and quivering.

He looked up, and Nigel nearly felt himself slipping out of his own mind and body and into another world.

The young boy had the most round and most amazing, captivating blue eyes Nigel had ever seen. They weren’t baby-blue or sea-blue, but more so a shade of a blue that reminded Nigel of the clear blue skies he had gazed upon when he was a lot younger and more carefree.

His eyelashes were thick and a lot longer than Nigel’s own, and they fluttered like the wings of a bird as he blinked and stared down. His brow ridge bore not too thick and not too thin brown eyebrows that were set in a firm yet slightly pained manner upon his forehead.

His lips were plump and almost feminine-like, neither red or too pink, but a very entrancing colour that definitely was perfect for kissing and tasting…

Nigel shook his head and woke up out of his thoughts.

This was a kid…and a boy at that!

Nigel cleared his throat and held out his hand, trying to forget his perverted, sick thoughts and start fresh.

“I’m Nigel.”

The kid looked at his hand and sniffled.

“I’m Adam Raki.”

Nigel looked down at his hand and wondered why the kid who had introduced himself as Adam Raki wasn’t shaking his hand, but he figured he was shy and tucked his hand back in his pockets.

“You okay, Adam?”

Adam shook his head and frowned. “I’m late for school…I’m going to get an absent letter, and it is going to ruin my perfect attendance record, and I’m going to make my father very upset and angry at me now.”

His voice was rather plain and monotone now, but Nigel liked it. It wasn’t too deep yet, indicating he was still beginning his transformation and growth into young adulthood, but it still held some sort of innocence to it.

Nigel shrugged, “Surely one day of being late won’t be a problem for your old man, right?”

Adam looked down at his sneakers and shook his head.

“How far is your school from here?”

Adam was silent.

“Oh…right…you don’t know…” Nigel wanted to slap himself in the face. Normally he paid a great deal of attention to details and what people said, but this kid was somewhat…distracting…

Nigel suddenly felt the bulb flicker.

“Hey, I have GPS in my car. Just tell me the name of your school and I can locate it and give you a ride.” He offered, standing back slightly to wait for the answer.

Adam looked at something to his left, mouth opening slightly as he held his hands together in his lap.

“I…I am not allowed to go anywhere with strangers…my parents said so.”

Of course…who the fuck was he kidding?

Nigel wanted to slap himself again, this time harder.

“Sure, yeah, sorry kid…I didn’t mean to offend you or anything, just offering because I thought it’d be a nice thing to do…sorry.”

Nigel stepped back and felt his car keys in his pocket, playing with them for a moment, as if trying to cover and hide his embarrassment. He felt his cheeks slightly warm and was glad his eyes were hidden behind the tinted sunglasses.

“Well…I guess I’ll see you around, Adam.” He said awkwardly, but his feet didn’t move away or closer to the door.

 _What am I doing?!?_ Nigel for once in his life felt absolutely lost and confused.

He knew that he ought to get going and return Darko’s call and get groceries for his empty fridge, but he felt compelled to stay behind here in the coffee shop and talk to the kid named Adam and see if he was really okay.

As if reading and hearing his inner thoughts, Adam looked up at Nigel’s chest and spoke softly.

“I am late…”

“I know.” Nigel spoke gently, and moved closer to Adam.

“You can give me a ride?” The inquisitive voice hit Nigel’s ears softly, as if fearful of the question and answer to come.

“Sure. I offered, right?”

“Right.”

Nigel offered a small half-smile, “So come on then.”

Adam grabbed his knapsack and held it to his chest, as if he were shielding himself from something.

“Okay.”

Nigel held open the door for him, and watched his quick footsteps as he made his way out of the busy coffee shop and to the parking lot.

Nigel pulled out his car keys and hit “unlock”, and the honk of his car jolted Adam out of his slight reverie.

“Sorry.”

_What the fuck am I apologizing for?!? I never apologize to anyone!!_

In a constant battle with his own thoughts, Nigel awkwardly sat down with Adam still standing outside by the passenger’s seat beside him.

Nigel got out of the car and made his way over to the passenger’s door, causing Adam to back away like a frightened animal as he gripped tighter to the blue knapsack.

“I didn’t help you with the door, I’m sorry.”

_Stop apologizing._

Adam smiled a small smile that made Nigel swallow thickly as he held open the car door and watched Adam slide in. He closed the door behind him and walked back to the driver’s seat and turned it on.

“You forgot to put on your seatbelt.” Adam’s voice came out like someone reading out the instructions of a manual or a textbook, but Nigel felt himself growing accustomed to that tone of voice.

“You’re right, we wouldn’t want to have any accidents, would we?” He put on the seatbelt, looking to the side at Adam, who already had his seatbelt drawn across his body.

“No, no accidents. You know, nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44, so you really have to be careful because we’re both within that age range and fit into that statistic.”

Nigel gaped at the boy as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“How old are you? You sound way too smart to be a teenager, really.”

Adam smiled, “I just turned fifteen.”

Nigel chuckled, “I see.”

“Yes.”

_Man, this kid is something else._

Nigel looked down at his GPS, finally remembering what he was intending to do before he got lost in the conversation and the kid’s intellect.

“What’s the name of your school, Adam?” He asked, fingers tapping the top of the GPS and brushing away some dust that had settled on the top.

………………………………….

The ride had ended way too quickly. It ended before it even began.

Nigel had lost himself in the conversation Adam had provided while they drove closer to the high school.

Adam had talked about stars, planets, constellations, and telescopes when Nigel had asked him what his hobbies and interests were.

Nigel had never considered any interest in space and astronomy, but the way Adam talked about it was beyond addictive. He felt he could go stargazing with Adam and learn a new thing every five seconds with the way Adam enthusiastically explained everything.

Adam literally was broadening Nigel’s horizons, and Nigel wanted to continue hearing more from this bright young boy.

The ride unfortunately came to an end when Adam pointed and cried out: “That’s my school!”

Nigel pulled in the parking lot between two cars and sighed, turning off the engine.

“I’m sorry you’re a bit late, Adam.” He looked at the boy’s bright, clear skin, admiring the way it still hadn’t sprouted any hair or thick, messy stubbles like his face did.

Adam looked down sadly but nodded. “I’ll be okay, my mother said she was going to call my teacher and let her know I am late, but because of the time, my first period class is almost going to end.”

“I see.”

Nigel looked ahead out the dashboard window at the large school. There weren’t any people lingering outside, thankfully.

He turned and stared at Adam silently for many long minutes, feeling his sunglasses slipping down his nose slightly.

Was he sweating?

“Well, thank you, Mr. Nigel.” Adam smiled at the passenger door and pushed it open, pulling his knapsack with him as he stood.

“Wait!” Nigel cried out and then cursed himself internally at how desperate and needy he had sounded.

Adam paused, and then sat back down. “Yes?” He asked, still looking out ahead at the school rather than at Nigel.

Nigel gaped and cleared his throat, despite the fact that his mouth was dry.

“Would you like to have my cell number? You know, just to talk or in case you ever miss your bus again and need a ride or something?”

_What the fuck am I doing?_

Nigel paused and for once paid close attention to his thoughts. This was a fifteen-year-old kid; not an older man he could befriend like he had Darko. Although he meant his offer sincerely for the purposes of reaching out to help the boy, Nigel still felt deep down this wasn’t right…fifteen year old kids didn’t make friends with forty-two-year-old adults. It just wasn’t right at all…

“Okay, sure.”

_What?_

Nigel hadn’t been expecting that answer at all. He had been expecting the kid to bolt from the car and run towards the school screaming for his life, but he hadn’t been expecting compliance.

This kid was definitely full of surprises.

“My number is 226-505-2336.”

Nigel scrambled for his phone.

“I’m sorry, please repeat it for me one more time, Adam.”

“226-505-2336.”

He punched the number in, added Adam as a contact, and he did it all in less than 40 seconds flat.

Adam pushed open the car door once again and put on his knapsack. He turned and closed the door gently, walking quickly towards the school without another word or another glance back at Nigel.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Nigel asked himself as he watched Adam walk all the way up to the front doors and enter the school, disappearing from his sight, but not from his mind.

“What the fuck am I doing???”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And no, those are not real numbers of people I personally know. (I actually had someone ask me that in a previous message -_- )


	5. Unsettling

**_Chapter 4_ **

Adam joined his class in the gymnasium even though he was approximately five minutes late. He had hurriedly changed in the changing rooms, and stood beside Beth as she jump roped on the spot while another girl timed her.

Adam didn’t want to look around to put together what activity they were supposed to do today for their Health and Fitness course, because he was sure at least someone was making fun of him and staring at him judgmentally for being late. Adam was never late, and he didn’t want to start having a bad record, for he knew that would mean it would affect his college application, and he would disappoint and upset his father.

He heard the girl timing Beth’s jumps counting, and then Beth’s feet suddenly stopped once she looked at Adam, her ponytail slightly wet and sweaty, her face and cheeks pink from exertion.

“Hey you!” She sighed happily, handing the rope neatly to the girl on the floor, who traded the rope for the stopwatch.

“How’d I do?” Beth asked her as she gently pet Adam’s arm.

The girl was named Kelly, and she had short blonde hair and blue eyes. She smiled, her dimpled, freckled face turning slightly pink from her own blush.

“You got like, fifty, I think.”

Beth cheered herself.

“Woot! Not bad, huh Adam?” She grabbed the stopwatch and sat down, flipping her ponytail to the side as she fanned herself with a folder she soon marked her progress down on.

Adam nodded, looking around the large gymnasium, noticing majority of his co-ed class in pairs, with one person always recording and timing as the other partner engaged either in push-ups, sit ups, lifting weights, bench-pressing, or doing beep tests. The entire gymnasium buzzed with overabundance in activity and noise, much to Adam’s discomfort. However, he didn’t entirely focus on the surplus of activities and noise; he was much too taken by the new older friend he had made that day.

Noticing he was staring off into space, Beth waved her hand in front of Adam’s face once he had sat himself beside her on the floor.

“Adam? Hellooooo? What’s up with you, boy? First you’re late for the first time in, like, EVER! Now you’re acting all outer-spacey!” She giggled and then snapped her fingers a few times in front of his nose, clipping the tip of it with her long nails, and causing him to break out of his daydreaming and thoughts.

He smiled, meeting her eyes for a few seconds before looking down at his shoes.

“Sorry Beth, I was just thinking about some stuff.”

She bit the end of her ballpoint pen, her sharp little white teeth grinding down on the plastic, bending it slightly down, as her lip-gloss covered lips rubbed their residue over the end of the pen.

“Uh huh…why were you late though? It made me worry about you!” She tapped the pen down onto the page like a little drumstick, looking back up at Adam with her large, dark brown round eyes.

Adam shrugged, “I missed my ride because I slept in, Beth.”

She gasped, the pen dropping, and it rolled down the page and onto the floor of the gym.

“Adam!” She caught the attention of Kelly, who stopped jumping for a second, only to resume when Beth threw her a small glare.

“Why did you sleep in?” She asked, scooting her body closer to Adam’s to prevent anymore onlookers and interlopers from listening in.

Adam covered his legs and knees by draping his hands over them as he drew them up against his chest, feet planted firmly on the floor, still gazing down at the recently waxed floor in awe and shame.

“I…I was really tired Beth…I stayed up really late working on the letter-”

She interrupted, grabbing him gently by the elbow, startling him.

“Adam! I knew I should’ve never let you do my work for me! This isn’t fair to you!” She sighed sadly, her lower lip sticking out in a small pout.

Adam found the sight of it simply adorable, and he blushed, smiling at the floor.

“It’s okay, Beth, I don’t mind because I really like writing. I’ll just try to go to bed earlier from now on.” He hoped the answer would suffice, and it seemed to, for she took her hand off his elbow and grabbed her sheet off the floor.

“Okay Adam, but if it is causing you problems, you have to let me know, okay?” She gripped her pen and began tapping the sheet with it rhythmically, settling into the beat of the steady jumping of Kelly.

Adam nodded happily, “Of course, Beth.”

Beth resumed counting Kelly’s jumps, her head bobbing up and down with the tapping of her shoes against the floor.

Adam sat still, holding his knees and legs with his hands, but he was lost in his thoughts, despite being physically in the gym beside Beth. He smiled to himself, remembering how brave and kind Mr. Nigel had been when he roughly pulled away the man who had almost harmed and threatened Adam in the coffee shop that morning. Adam wasn’t expecting anyone to help him, because everyone else had run into on the streets that morning hadn’t even given him a second’s worth of their time; everyone had just been in a rush and hurry to get to work on time.

Gazing at the taller, older male had scared Adam at first, and he at first had originally surmised that he too was going to yell at him and order him out of the coffee shop, but then he had appeared like Adam’s personal angel, or savior. He had seemed so strong, his arms seizing the man who had attacked Adam and tossing him to the side like an unwanted element with no trouble. Adam had been amazed and frightened, so he had hung back, but a part of him desperately yearned to talk to the man before he headed out of the shop. He hadn’t been expecting the man to speak to him first, however, but he had! Hardly anyone except for Beth and Kelly spoke to Adam, so Adam was pleased he could have a new friend to talk to now.

He had been thinking more about the car ride to his school when he felt Beth’s warm fingers grip his shoulder and she gently shook him once.

“Adam? Oh my god! You’re daydreaming again?!” She cried exhaustedly, placing the sheet on her lap as she crossed her legs and turned directly to sit in front of Adam, leaving Kelly abandoned to their side, jumping on, huffing and puffing as she was out of breath already.

Adam gasped and moved back, trying to brush his thoughts of his new friend to the side, almost fearful that Beth’s pointed inquisition would be able to sniff it out and corner him with more questions.

Beth gasped, covering her mouth and giggling, cheeks turning red.

“Adam, I’m sorry, hon, I just wanted to know what’s going on!”

Adam ran a hand through the back of his thick brown hair and smiled.

“Nothing, Beth, I’m just thinking a lot lately.”

He knew that repeating the same, artless response he previously had wouldn’t satiate Beth’s curiosity, and she clearly showed evidence of her growing interest in Adam’s odd display of behaviour.

“Adaaammmm!” She began, poking him softly with the tip of the pen, the cap closed over the top.

Adam giggled, “What?”

Beth cocked an eyebrow. “Adam, are you in love with someone?”

Adam froze, not sure he heard her correctly the first time.

“Excuse me?” He looked up at her, blue eyes full of shock and awe.

Beth’s eyes widened and she gasped, then squealed, sitting up on her knees and giggling loudly.

“Oh my god! You are! I knew it! No wonder you’re acting so weird today!!!”

Adam felt a bit uncomfortable, and retreated further from her.

“No I’m not in love, Beth!” He protested vehemently, scooting back on his bum across the floor quickly.

She glared playfully at him for a second before her eyes gleamed with mischief and she broke out in more laughter, swatting Adam’s arms and legs.

“Adam Raki! Don’t lie to me! I can tell you’re crushing hard on someone!” She tugged on his arms, pulling him back closer towards her as Kelly threw down the rope defeatedly, and walked over to sit beside them on the floor.

“What’s going on?” She asked, fanning her face with her hands quickly.

“Adam’s in love!” Beth cried, pointing at Adam and giggling.

“I’m not!” Adam cried, batting her finger away out of his face.

Kelly gasped and laughed gleefully. “Who’s the lucky gal?”

“No one!” Adam argued, feeling Beth push his hands away, and he retaliated playfully and jokingly, swatting his hands against hers, and they battled with their fingers and hands for a few moments before they stopped, their laughter taking over.

“Seriously, who do you like?” Kelly inquired again, leaning forward closely, panting heavily.

Adam sighed, feeling frustration growing within him. “I don’t like anyone, Kelly.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “He’s lying. He’s been out of it the entire time he got back.”

Kelly snickered. “Our boy’s totally in love.”

“Totally.”

Adam shook his head, “Stop it, you two! I just made a new friend who is very nice and awesome, and I really am happy about that, that’s all!”

Both girls stopped laughing and giggling amongst themselves, and frowned slightly, both their faces a red flush. They looked around the large gym before looking back at Adam in front of them.

“Is it someone in the class?” Beth asked, and it seemed to be the same question Kelly had, for she opened her mouth, then closed it, followed by nodding once.

Adam shook his head, “No, it’s not someone in the class…”

They paused, looking around once more.

“Is it someone in our fifth period class?” Beth asked again, growing more and more curious by the second.

Adam shook his head, looking at the floors again bashfully.

“Is it-”

“He doesn’t go to our school.” Adam interrupted Kelly, causing both Kelly and Beth to pause and look at each other, shrugging and biting on their lips in thought and bewilderment, their brains racking up thoughts and estimations as to who Adam’s new friend could possibly be.

Before they could ask another question, their gym teacher blew his whistle, signaling the end of the class time.

“Get to the changerooms, NOW!” He bellowed out strongly, and majority of the students cheered and happily began returning the sports items back to their appropriate places as they headed for their separate change rooms.

Beth got up, pulling Kelly up with her, who ran for the change rooms, waving at both Beth and Adam in adieu.

Beth leaned down and whispered to Adam quickly: “We’ll talk later!”

She hurried off after Kelly, leaving Adam to his thoughts and ponderings before he slowly rose to his feet and walked slowly towards the exit.

………………….

**_Friday 4 PM_ **

Jack Crawford’s office appeared exactly how Nigel originally suspected it would be: brightly lit, with off-white large walls decorated with numerous degrees and framed documents of Jack’s infamy and notoriety at the back behind the large dark brown oak desk. Seated in front of Jack and his desk, were three identical silver metal framed chairs, two of which were empty. The floor bore a disgusting blue carpet, which Nigel made sure to wipe his muddy shoes on before he sat down in front of the desk.

Jack sat gazing at Nigel, studying him intently when he first walked in, before gesturing calmly for him to take a seat.

On Jack’s desk sat his silver Apple MacBook, and a small group of picture frames, their backs turned to Nigel. How typical. Jack Crawford clearly had a private life, filled with those he cherished and loved, but he liked to rub it in the faces of others while also secretly condemning them for being a bit too curious…

Nigel fought the urge to flip over the picture frames, not wanting to piss off the law enforcement worker. He had made sure to be a bit early, just in case Jack decided to be in a particularly sour mood that day, but luckily for Nigel, he wasn’t.

He smiled until Nigel stopped fidgeting in his seat from side to side, his hair falling over his forehead as he struggled in his chair to get the best, most comfortable position attainable. The chair made little squeaking and creaking noises as Nigel first crossed a long leg over the other, then changed to the opposite leg being on top, then finally settled from stretching his long legs before him, his knees hitting the back of the desk as he settled for crossing his muscley arms over his chest and glaring up at Jack from beneath his wiry blond bangs.

Jack gave an amused half smile.

“All settled?” He asked, eyes gleaming, fully indicating to Nigel that he found the entire spectacle rather hilarious as opposed to being a kind host for that afternoon.

Nigel grunted his response.

“Wonderful. Alright Nigel, so tell me how your week has been.”

Jack sat back, mimicking Nigel’s position (though if he were doing it out of malice, Nigel wasn’t entirely able to tell), and crossed his arms over his own chest, his chin resting downward, eyes pointed up at Nigel questioningly.

Nigel opened his mouth and sighed.

“Well, I’m still getting used to how things are here. Everything’s really busy and fast paced, you know? Complete opposite of Romania.”

Jack nodded, indicating for Nigel to continue.

“I decided to go for a drive, you know? See the sights and shit for myself,” he picked at some coffee stains leftover on his shirt that the little kid named Adam Raki had caused barely the day before. Why Nigel hadn’t washed out the stains was beyond his thoughts for the time being.

“…it was nice going around town, and I went to a Starbucks the other day to try out some new drinks there. It was really busy, and I was trying to talk to one of my old friends from back home, when I suddenly was interrupted because this little-”

Nigel paused in his ramblings. He knew for certain that if he explained to Jack about his newfound friendship with a fifteen-year-old kid, the man would just charge him with lewd conduct such as attempting to corrupt a minor or something, and he’d be thrown back in the hole in Romania. There was no fucking way he was going to be that fucking stupid and blow the lid on everything, so he bit down hard on his tongue and swallowed the rest of his unspoken words down his throat.

Jack Crawford, however, wasn’t ready to let that go away. He unfolded his arms from his chest and draped them over the front of the desk, highly amused as he had been once Nigel had walked into his office.

“I’m sorry? You were saying?” He asked, an eyebrow delicately raised, and surprisingly, no wrinkles or signs of worry crossed his older features.

Nigel shook his head and sniffed, looking down at his knees. “Nothing. I just meant to say there was a little error in someone’s order, I think, and so the line was held up but otherwise, I had a good time being out, I guess.”

Jack didn’t stop smirking, which indicated to Nigel he definitely didn’t buy that story, and it was a no brainer give-away, due to the fact that the man was highly trained and proficient in human behaviour and psychology.

“I see. Well, that’s a very interesting week, Nigel, I’m sure you’ll have much more to tell me as the weeks carry on and we meet regularly, of course.” The mild reminder and threat didn’t go unnoticed.

Jack turned over to his MacBook, turning it on, the fan making a small whirring noise as it breathed to life.

“Now, I wanted to thank you for sending over your first letter to me. I looked over it, and it’s a rather good start.”

Nigel cursed himself internally, nearly neglecting to recall that of course Jack would review anything he sent out before actually sending it out. He wondered how he would be judged for his lousy introduction, and the answer was slightly implied by Jack’s cumbersome facial expressions.

“Is it okay?” Nigel asked, gritting his teeth and speaking more out of the back of his throat than anything else. He suddenly felt stuffy in the medium sized office and desperately wanted to get the fuck out before the situation grew more awkward than it already had panned out to be.

Jack nodded, his eyebrows doing a little dance on his forehead as he leaned his head from side to side, thinking.

“It’s not bad, but I’m sure in the future you’ll be sure to edit things and pay attention to details.” He read over the letter once, eyes flying up and down the screen of the MacBook before he turned back to Nigel.

Nigel wanted to slap the old amused look off Jack’s face, but he held tightly onto his arms over his chest, the weight of his muscles and bones pressing against his sternum, making his breath tighten in his chest as his head and stomach churned, anticipating what Jack would utter next.

Jack clasped his hands together and smiled the phoniest smile Nigel had ever seen anyone smile.

“Well for future reference, I suggest writing down a list of things you feel you could talk about, and then try to think of questions the student may have for you ahead of time. That may help phrases come together more naturally and make your communication a lot more fluid and constructive.”

Nigel glared at him, his thin eyebrows set tightly and rigidly on his brow, his sharp, crooked teeth pointing at Jack from beneath the furl of his upper lip.

“Of course.” Was all he could spit out before his emotions and anger took control.

Jack beamed at him. “Perfect! Now, I think we should discuss your caseworker and employment officer’s instructions on how you can access the job market and try to settle into the working environment here…”

………………….

Nigel was pleased with himself for making a note in the morning before he left his apartment that he had to call Darko and have a Skype video call with him. He was sure he’d forget, otherwise, and he prided himself on being at least partly organized and possessing the foresight to arrange his affairs neatly.

He made sure majority of his dishes and kitchen had been cleaned after he finished eating, for he didn’t wish to alarm Darko and make the man think he was living in a fucking pigsty. It also didn’t make things easier given how the sitting room easily opened to the kitchen.

Nigel sat down on one of his sofas, propping the laptop comfortably on his lap, and opening up Skype. He hardly ever used that app, so it took him a while before he remembered he had to open a chat window with Darko first to see if the man was even online.

Nigel saw the little green icon next to Darko’s picture and name, and he typed in the chat window:

_Hey asshole, u on?_

He sat back, stretching his arms up over his head towards the ceiling when Darko quickly responded back with:

_Obviously, moron. Call me._

Nigel typed back: _k_

Nigel looked around the screen for a while before finally connecting the dots and clicking on “Start a Video Call”. He watched as his screen turned blue and Darko’s picture and his came up on the screen while the music that was signaling the call being made chimed on repeatedly.

After a few repetitions of the annoying tune, Darko answered the call.

The view became full screen, and Nigel suddenly wished it hadn’t.

Darko was lying down on his bed, with the sheets messily draped over his naked chest, all the way wrapping around his bare leg, covering the important bits Nigel never wished to lay eyes upon.

“What the fuck, Darko?” He glared, looking away from the sight and feeling his cheeks turning red.

Darko switched on the desk light on his night table and smirked.

“Good to see you too, Nigel.”

Darko rested his head back onto his pillow, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out slowly as he rested a hand over his chest.

“So how have you been?” Nigel asked, tapping his feet out of boredom, but also to move away from the awkward sight of his nude friend.

Darko shrugged, “Same old shit, you know? Things haven’t been any worse or better since you left.”

Nigel gave a half shrug. “I knew you could fucking handle anything anyway, so what’s the deal?”

Darko took a drag.

“It’s not a matter of handling it or not; it’s just…I don’t know…it’s fuckin’ weird being here by myself.”

“Awww, you poor little baby.” Nigel cooed.

Darko flipped him off and laughed.

“Shut up, you miss me as much as I miss you!”

Nigel shook his head. “Sure.”

Suddenly, the sheets beside Darko began to stir, and a round shape bunched up beneath them. Like a ghost, the sheets rose, moving across the screen and over Darko’s chest, before they fell and revealed the face of a young woman.

She was likely in her late 20s and she had short brown hair. Her eyeliner and eyeshadow were smudged, and her lipstick was smeared. She kissed Darko’s chest, and rested her cheek on it before looking up at the screen and smirking.

“Hi Nigel.” She uttered lazily, running her arms up and down Darko’s chest and abs.

Nigel rolled his eyes.

“Hi Xanadu. Long time no see.”

The young prostitute giggled as Darko leaned forward and nibbled on her ear.

“How like you to mix business with pleasure.” Nigel chided as he watched Darko play with one of Xanadu’s long, heavy earrings.

Darko sighed, “This is BOTH pleasure and business, Nigel. You’re just unable to see it.”

The sheets moved off Xanadu, and her round C-Cup breasts bounced up as Darko pulled her against his chest, kissing her neck.

Nigel scoffed. “I do see it, believe me.”

He watched the pair roll around on the bed, making the camera tilt and shake with their movements for minutes before he had had enough of their antics.

“Well, Darko, if there’s nothing else you need to tell me, I’ll fuck off.”

Darko waved at him, but didn’t cease kissing the young woman as she moaned and giggled in response to every kiss he bestowed upon her.

“Night, asswipe.”

Nigel hung up the call and shut down his laptop. He didn’t want to head to bed yet, but he had to admit, he felt a lot more exhausted and worn out than he originally thought he was.

He stood, clearing off the little table and putting the laptop away, when he suddenly felt his phone vibrating on the kitchen counter where he had left it.

It vibrated loudly and strongly, causing some of the dishes to rattle in response.

Nigel walked into the kitchen, checking his messages quickly. He hoped it would be Adam, but it wasn’t; it was only his phone service provider alerting him of a new deal for the next few months.

Nigel cursed the sender and deleted the message, and he went through his contact list, finding himself trying to relieve an itch he suddenly noticed he had…

Nigel stopped when he landed on R…Raki…should he? Could he? There was no way Adam would respond at nearly 10 PM…would he?

He felt indecisive for the first time in his life, and it troubled him. He didn’t want to be the first to message a child, but he also needed to see how the kid was doing. It wouldn’t be anything unusual for a friend to do, right?

Deciding upon it, Nigel set the phone down. It wasn’t right. He wouldn’t bother Adam this late at night and make things awkward. Besides, what if his mom or dad picked up the phone or saw the text messages by accident instead? It would mean trouble for Nigel once again, and he didn’t need it.

He walked off to his bedroom, leaving the phone on the counter.

He had been able to brush his teeth and wash his face when the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach began growing until it was damn near impossible to ignore.

Nigel set down his toothbrush and ran back to his kitchen, snatching his phone and running back to his bedroom.

He lay back on his back, scrolling down alphabetically until he got to R and his fingers hovered over “Create New Message”.

Nigel felt his eyes moving along the keypad of his phone, mentally reciting the entire alphabet and breathing slowly, trying to feel calmer than he was currently. He would send a small, friendly message! Adam probably wouldn’t respond until tomorrow, but at least he’d have a kind message to read and respond to if he could…when he could…

Nigel closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Calm the fuck down, this is a friend speaking to a friend.” Nigel had no idea when he had started talking to himself, or more importantly, why he had done it, but it felt natural…it felt like it was the only solace he could create for himself as his fingers shook violently, his throat grew dry, and his fingertips began growing icy cold.

“What the fuck? Why am I feeling so weird?” Nigel put down the phone for a moment, and looked up at the ceiling, trying to calm down.

It didn’t seem to work, so he held up the phone again, desperate to just send out his salutation and be done with it so he could get some shut-eye.

**_Hey Adam. It’s Nigel. How’re you?_ **

He was amazed he had struggled and misspelled the words a few times before he was able to hit “Send”.

Nigel put the phone beside his pillow and looked at his ceiling again, rubbing his temples in a feeble attempt at dissipating his headache.

He curled his hand into a balled-up fist, and draped it over his forehead, gently tapping his forehead and cursing himself with every tap of his fist.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid…”

His phone vibrated.

Nigel froze mid-tap, and turned slowly to look at his phone.

There was no way it was Adam…

He grabbed the phone, nearly dropping it onto his sheets, but it was Adam! It was Adam!

The message Adam sent read:

**_Hello Mr. Nigel. I am good, just getting ready for bed because I don’t want to sleep in again. What are you doing?_ **

Nigel hurriedly typed out his next response before Adam could fall asleep.

**_I’m also about to go to bed. Sorry I texted you kinda late…was just hopin’ you’d be okay._ **

The next response came immediately.

**_I’m fine, thank you for asking._ **

This lead to the longest and most awkward pause Nigel had ever experienced over text. He wasn’t sure exactly what to say, but he knew he didn’t want to end the conversation right there.

He frowned, texting out what he felt was ‘natural’ as Jack said earlier that day.

**_That’s good…so are you lying down?_ **

“Shit…I didn’t mean it like that!” Nigel slammed his head against the phone, wondering where his brain had been at when he asked such an odd question that he normally reserved for his private life.

He hoped Adam wouldn’t get the wrong idea, but he feared he had when nearly 4 minutes ticked by without a response.

Nigel hoped he wouldn’t receive a call from an angry parent, but he anticipated he would as he lay back staring out his window and then at the ceiling.

“Fuck!”

The vibration of the phone scared him, and he eagerly checked his message.

**_Sorry about that, I was brushing my teeth and dressing for bed. I am now lying down. I am so tired._ **

Nigel suddenly drew up a mental image of Adam lying down on his bed, the moonlight from his window lighting up his young features as he stretched out his limbs on the mattress, hair messy and slightly unkempt as he stretched up and gazed ahead, his shirt flying up slightly to reveal a pale, flat stomach…

**_What’re you wearing?_ **

Within minutes, the reply came:

**_Just my space pjs my mom got me last year. They still fit me._ **

“I have to stop, right now.” Nigel hissed at himself in a warning, but his fingers didn’t seem to agree and want to listen to him, because the next question was already texted out, waiting and taunting him on the screen as the words glared back at him.

**_Do you want to masturbate?_ **

Nigel immediately hit the “Delete” button and erased the disturbing, disgusting question. This was a fucking child!

“I’m a sick old fuck.” Nigel bit down hard on his tongue, feeling the tip oozing out some blood before he texted out:

**_Nice. Well I’m going to bed, Adam. Nite._ **

“I should leave it at that, no more.” Nigel sighed as he watched the response of: **_Goodnight, sweet dreams_** add onto the conversation thread. He had never felt so dirty and shameful in his entire life, and he wished never to repeat that feeling of sick desire pooling deep in his belly ever again. He chalked it off to not having had any physical contact with a woman in years, and also seeing Darko with the young prostitute.

Nigel again silently looked at the “Delete Conversation” option, and his fingers made their way over to tap it, but he clenched his fingers tightly into his palm instead.

“Goodnight, Adam.” He said aloud as he turned off his phone, set it onto his night table, and curled under his sheets.

It took well over an hour before Nigel closed his eyes and finally succumbed to a deep sleep.


	6. It's Not a Date

**_Chapter 5_ **

 

They’d been texting almost routinely from the following morning onward, with Nigel starting off majority of the conversations.

They had been simple at first, with Nigel inquiring how Adam’s school was going, how his studies and projects fared, like any concerned older friend would, but deep down, Nigel knew he was trying to provide his growing appetite and desire to learn more about the young Adam in the most innocent, harmless way possible.

He knew that the day would eventually arrive when he was no longer content and satisfied with simply texting easy-going questions, but he didn’t think about it too much; he just allowed himself to have plenty of room to enjoy Adam’s conversations for the following couple of weeks.

Days went by quicker with Adam being in Nigel’s life, and for the first time since Gabi, Nigel felt welcome in someone’s life, and it made him feel happiness. This wasn’t the basic version of happiness, however; the one that came and went as night and day. This was a deep-rooted happiness that was akin to every day being someone’s birthday or Christmas. Nigel didn’t want the feeling to go away anytime soon, so each day, he came up with new things to ask Adam and in hopes of keeping his attention onto himself only.

Nigel knew this was slowly spiraling into a small form of an obsession, but he felt he was allowed to have that, after everything Charlie Countryman and that bitch Gabi had put him through. Being selfish for a bit wouldn’t hurt anyone, and Adam didn’t seem to mind or have any issue with it, for he responded back just as eagerly and enthusiastically.

Nigel grew more and more pleased with Adam’s conversations every day, which brightened his mood and was easily noticed by all those around him, especially Jack Crawford. Every Friday afternoon when Nigel walked in for his appointment, Jack made an effort to point out to Nigel that he seemed a different, changed man. Jack pointed out that Nigel was smiling more often, looked as if he were making a great effort to clean up and shape up his outer appearance, and he seemed more excited and pleasing to be around.

Nigel indeed agreed with Jack, for he had regularly styled his hair, some days parting it to the side and gelling it back, some days arranging it to hang evenly around both sides of his head, and some days pushing up sunglasses in it, trying to look stylish and more youthful. He shaved regularly, and his skin seemed to glow and brighten more. Nigel told Jack he’d been following a healthier diet as of late, drinking more water, smoking less whenever he could, drinking less alcohol, and enjoying more fresh air outside.

Jack seemed pleased and impressed, smiling and nodding as he jotted down those comments Nigel supplied into Nigel’s case file, and encouraged Nigel to keep up the good work, as it was all appearing to be quite successful not only for himself, but for the community as well.

Nigel carried on this way for weeks, still satisfied with the little things in his new life, when he woke up one morning on a Thursday, feeling for the first time in a while that he was growing agitated and anxious…

He reached for his cellphone on the night table, and immediately texted his most favorite person: Adam Raki.

………………………………….

Adam snapped upwards in fear and shock when he felt his phone vibrating strongly from within the pockets of his jeans.

He had been writing an exam for his History class when his phone had unexpectedly gone off, and it buzzed super loudly in the already-silent room.

The heads of all of Adam’s classmates shot up, including the teacher as he sat by his desk.

“Adam Raki! Was that a cellphone we all just heard now?” Mr. Aiken, a short, stout man with white hair, thick-rimmed black glasses, and a white moustache glared up at Adam, causing a few students to drop their pens and turn to peer at Adam, pleased for the distraction so they could momentarily cease writing their exams.

Adam swallowed thickly in shame. “I’m sorry, Mr. Aiken.”

“You know you’re not supposed to have your cellphone on in this class!” The angry teacher stood, placing his hands on the desk as he looked darkly at Adam.

“I’ll turn it off now!” Adam dug into his pockets, but the teacher had already made his way over to Adam’s desk through the aisles.

“Out. Now.” He crossed his arms as he towered menacingly over Adam, his eyebrows raised as he looked down at the exam.

Adam gaped at him, beginning to feel worried.

“But I-”

Mr. Aiken swooped down and snatched away the exam paper, bringing it up to his face and inspecting it like a hawk.

“Adam, these aren’t even complete answers.”

His classmates snorted.

Mr. Aiken lowered the page, eyes flying up to the sea of curious young students, and he glared at them.

“Turn around, get back to your work!”

Adam reached up with a hand for the exam paper desperately, fingers shaking in growing fear.

“Please Mr. Aiken, I will finish my answers properly, I promise!” His voice grew a bit louder and more panicked, but the teacher didn’t share his pity.

He snatched up the test and folded it under his arm, frowning down at Adam disappointedly.

“Adam, you can finish your exam after school tomorrow, because I have a staff meeting after school today. Now, please pack your things, and leave my classroom.”

The students once again had turned in their seats to snoop, though they were more subtle about it this time. They peeked at Adam from the corners of their eyes, snickering and sneering at him, a few of them shaking their heads and then writing things down on their pages to appear to be working instead of imposing and snooping.

Adam felt his heart sinking down his chest and into the pit of his belly, but he didn’t argue with the teacher. He quietly packed his bags, and stood up out of his seat, tucking it in quickly, hanging his head low so no one would catch him blushing out of embarrassment.

He walked to the door of the classroom, and managed to catch Beth’s sad look before he closed the door and walked into the empty halls of the school.

As he walked through the halls to find an empty stairwell to sit and think in, his thoughts ran and raced wildly through his mind of what his father and mother would think and say to him when he got home. His father would probably grow very mad, yell at him, and his mother would be saddened and disappointed.

“I worked very hard to get you enrolled in that school, Adam!” Adam could hear his father’s harsh, overbearing words right now, and he began crying as he finally made it to the first floor’s stairwell which thankfully was empty and clear.

Adam sat down on top of his bookbag, hiding his face in his hands for a few moments, trying to wipe away his tears just in case another student or nosey teacher happened to be prowling and monitoring the stairwells.

He dabbed away with his sleeves at his eyes until they were only stinging, but dry.

His phone vibrated again deep in his pockets, and Adam finally reached into his pocket and dug it out to see who it was who had texted him and landed him in trouble.

He wanted to be angry when he saw that it was Nigel, but Adam felt deep in his heart that he couldn’t bring himself to be angry at Nigel. Nigel was really starting to grow on him lately, for he was his only guy friend, and he had proven constantly that he was always valuing him by reaching out to him and texting him every day. Adam didn’t want to push away the only other person who had truly cared enough about him to make an effort daily to talk to him, so he smiled as he read Nigel’s text message.

**_Adam? How’re u?_ **

**_Hope ur awake…_ **

The next one had been sent later, which read:

**_Go out with me_ **

Adam suddenly frowned once he had read Nigel’s last message. He wasn’t sure what Nigel had meant by ‘go out with me’, and he surely wasn’t expecting Nigel to be so…demanding and forward…he never had been throughout all their conversations, and this sudden brazen attitude frightened Adam, but he found himself responding nevertheless, which shocked him.

**_Hi Nigel. I’m ok. I got in trouble at school._ **

Adam truthfully texted the situation and sat back, holding his phone in his lap as he began once again thinking about what Nigel meant with his last text message. Adam had been texting Nigel for nearly a month and half now, and he had been amazed that they had never spoken over the phone, or seen each other face-to-face. Adam had merely assumed that Nigel wasn’t that interested enough for a physical and more regular friendship outside of texting, so he hadn’t brought it up, not wanting to lose his new friend.

**_Y? what happened, darling?_ **

Adam frowned again, fingers shaking as he felt a billion questions swimming around in his mind. Why was Nigel calling him ‘darling’? Adam heard his mother calling his father ‘darling’ a few times, and he knew that only married couples spoke to each other like that, not friends!

He texted back:

**_Why’re you calling me ‘darling’, Nigel?  
and my History teacher Mr. Aiken heard you texting me in class when I was writing my exam!_ **

Nigel noticed he had been pacing his living room, waiting for Adam’s text message for a few minutes before his phone vibrated.

Nigel stopped in his tracks, looking at himself in the mirror he hung on the wall, frowning at himself for his odd display of behaviour at that moment.

His reflection seemed to almost whisper out to him: “Why’re you doing this?”

“What the fuck are you looking at, chump?” He hissed at his reflection before grabbing the phone to answer Adam.

**_I’m calling u now._ **

Adam’s eyes widened like little tennis balls once he read what Nigel had sent him.

“No wait!”

Before he realized it, his cellphone’s ringtone buzzed and sang loudly, the noise resonating everywhere all corners of the stairwell.

Not wanting someone to hear it and land him in deeper trouble, Adam quickly answered Nigel’s call.

“Hello?” He whispered, praying no one was going to hear their conversation.

“I’m sorry you got in trouble, Adam.”

Adam suddenly felt a funny, warm, gooey feeling begin from his cheeks, pooling and draining all the way down his throat, to his chest, where it did funny things to his heart, and then moved down lower to his belly and toes. His legs felt like weak jelly, and he nearly dropped the phone when he leaned to rest his elbow on his knees, which wobbled like a stack of cards. He just felt…strange as soon as he had heard Nigel’s voice over the phone, and he didn’t know why.

“It’s okay, Nigel, I’m not mad at you.” He smiled and felt himself blushing, mentally appreciating that Nigel wasn’t able to see it right now.

He heard his friend chuckle. “That’s good, darling.”

The confusion flew back into Adam’s mind once he heard that name again.

“Nigel, why do you keep calling me that?” Adam asked, unable to hold back his burning curiosity any longer.

Nigel chuckled again, this time a bit softer.

“Does it bother you? I’ll stop calling you that if it bothers you, Adam.” The sincerity in his voice hit Adam’s ears like a baseball bat, and he immediately felt guilty. Nigel was only trying to be kind and friendly to him, that’s all! There’s no reason why he shouldn’t accept that title.

Adam blushed deeper, shaking his head back and forth.

“No, you can call me that, Nigel, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Are you sure?” Nigel asked gently.

“I’m sure.” Adam nodded, playing with a little piece of lint on his jeans, tossing it around the length of his thigh, watching it move and dance about.

“Good to hear, darling.”

Adam could almost visualize Nigel winking at him, which made him cough a little as he blushed and felt his face burning hot.

“You alright, darling?” Nigel’s concerned tone came.

“Y-yes, Nigel, I’m alright, just kind of tired, I guess.”

“Hopefully not too tired to see me today?” Nigel inquired softly, his voice neither pressing or pushing the matter, but his tone leaving the door open for the possibility of accepting the offer.

“Now?” Adam asked, feeling shocked and panicked. How could he leave from school and see Nigel? His parents would definitely get a call from Principal Morton and he’d be grounded for months!

Nigel laughed a deep, hearty laugh then, “No, Adam!! Tonight, if possible.”

Adam felt relieved, but then he suddenly tightened up, wondering what he could say to his parents. His parents always asked where he went, with whom he wanted to go out with, and why they were going out. There was no way he could cover this lie to them.

“I can’t, Nigel! My parents will want to know!”

“Hmmm, we can’t have that, darling.”

Adam frowned, wondering why Nigel didn’t want him to be honest with his parents.

“Why not? My parents care about me, that’s why they want to know, Nigel.” He whispered, making sure his voice was lowered despite how agitated he felt on the inside.

“Can you say you’re going somewhere with one of your classmates for a school project instead, then?” Nigel asked, and Adam gasped out loud.

“Nigel! I can’t lie to my parents!”

Nigel snorted, “Why not, gorgeous?”

“Lies are bad!”

“A little white lie never hurt anyone, darling, trust me.” Nigel answered back smoothly and confidently.

Adam was confused. “How do you know what colour the lie is, Nigel?”

There was silence over the other end of the line before Nigel burst out in laughter for over two minutes, and it caused Adam to chuckle back, as the laughter was so contagious in nature.

“You’ve no idea how cute you really are, darling.” Nigel responded once he could breathe enough from his laughter.

Adam agreed, and Nigel’s statement helped make him feel so much better, despite everything that had happened that day.

………………………………….

Adam dressed quickly in his room, wearing his brand new blue spring jacket his mother had purchased him, which had many little pockets fashionably sewn on, with big circular black buttons in the center. He wore deep blue jeans, and hoped they would keep him warm enough in the early night air, the weather still not warm enough to call it a good summer.

Adam combed his hair neatly, made sure his teeth were washed and cleaned before he carefully and quietly stepped downstairs from his room, tucking his cellphone in his pocket after answering Nigel’s text of:

**_where u wanna meet, gorgeous?_ **

Adam texted:

**_we should meet at starbucks again, they’re open late at night_ **

He was nearly at his front door, grabbing his shoes, when Nigel texted back:

**_sounds good, but I wanna pick u up, gorgeous. it's dark and i’ll worry about u._ **

Adam placed the phone on the last step, tying up his shoelaces quickly while his parents sat in the living room watching TV. The lights and glares from the TV lit the dark hallway, helping Adam tie up the rest of his laces before he texted Nigel back:

**_No! i am not supposed to be sneaking out anyway-_ **

“Adam? Where are you going, son?”

Adam froze, mid text, and looked up to see his mother and father standing in the hallway, his mother turning on the lights as she looked down at him with a frown, her lips thin and eyebrows twitching in concern.

Adam knew he was caught, but he remembered what Nigel had suggested he should do if his parents asked where he was going. Carefully putting on an innocent smile, Adam sat down on the last step and looked up at his parents.

“I was going out to work on the class project for History with Kelly.”

Adam felt bad that he was lying and bringing his friend into the lie as well, but Nigel said one little lie couldn’t and wouldn’t hurt anyone, and the lie wasn’t entirely a lie, because Adam did have many projects coming up in his History class…though they weren’t partnered for their projects…and Kelly wasn’t in his History class at all…Adam had chosen Kelly for a good reason, however. He knew that Beth lived on the third floor of their apartment building, and Adam's mother was best friends with Beth's mother. She could easily call up Beth's mother and ask about the project which never existed, and Adam would get himself and Nigel in trouble. As much as Adam trusted and cared for Beth, he just couldn't tell her about Nigel...for now.

Adam's mother placed a finger on her chin before she spoke, "Is Beth coming along, too?"

"She's not in my group, Mr. Aiken arranged the partners." 

Adam's mother continued with her little interrogation, her finger tapping a few times on her chin as she thought up her questions.

"So Beth has to work on this as well?" She asked softly, her face neutral and difficult for Adam to read through.

He just nodded. "Yes, she has to do it too, mom. Everyone does..."

Adam’s father and mother sighed a unanimous sigh of relief, and Adam’s father walked towards his son, leaning against the banister as he smiled warmly down at his son.

“Adam, you could’ve just said so, though it’s kinda late to be working on projects, isn’t it?”

Adam shrugged, still trying to keep up with the act.

“It’s only 9:30, dad.”

“He’s fifteen, dear.” Adam’s mother spoke up, rubbing her husband’s shoulders warmly.

Adam’s father nodded and kissed his wife’s cheek.

“Alright, I’ll take you to Kelly’s house, Adam. Let me grab my car keys.” He made his way out of the hall, when Adam stood abruptly.

“No!”

From how forcefully he had yelled out, his father and mother both looked down at him wearing shocked expressions.

His father frowned.

“Excuse me, Adam?” He asked, walking over to Adam in a slow manner that Adam sensed was going to bring trouble. Adam hated it whenever his father was suspicious, for he never stopped at anything to get to the truth. Adam knew he couldn’t admit anything to his father and mother yet, so he smiled again innocently.

“I mean…we’re not meeting at Kelly’s house, dad.”

Adam’s father raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Oh?”

“We’re meeting at Starbucks…?” Adam’s voice turned into a question at the end, and he glanced up at his mother, hoping she would understand and allow it.

She smiled at him, then her husband, placing her hands on her hips as she walked towards her husband calmly.

“Either way is fine, dear, but next time, tell Kelly that her house is a better place to meet at.”

She tapped her husband’s shoulders once, reassuringly, before she walked into the kitchen and out of their view.

Adam’s phone vibrated again, making Adam jump up and cry out in shock, and then a small tremor as he tried gathering his nerves so his father wouldn’t grow more suspicious.

Adam’s father sighed, but grabbed his coat and car keys, unlocking the front door before looking down at his son after he had opened the front door, bringing in the cool night air inside the apartment.

“Tell Kelly to cool it, we’ll get there in another ten or so minutes.”

“Yes dad.”

………………………………….

Adam sat in the backseat of the car, surreptitiously texting and reading Nigel’s messages as his father drove towards the Starbucks, which was still open, as a few people sat inside at the tables drinking and chatting when Adam’s father pulled into the parking lot.

He kept the engine on, looking out the windows inside the coffee shop while Adam texted Nigel:

**_im here_ **

Adam’s father looked ahead, engine rumbling and purring, when he sighed suddenly and looked back at Adam in the backseat.

“Adam, I don’t see Kelly anywhere.” He said, appearing tired and frustrated, his eyes shifting through the parking lot now.

“Sh-she said she’ll be a bit late…she told me to wait inside for her until she arrives.” Adam answered quickly, gathering his phone in his jacket sleeve as he pushed open the car door.

“Adam!” His father cried out, causing Adam to pause as he had one foot out the car door and one foot still inside.

“Yes dad?” Adam turned and looked at his father as he leaned over the back of his chair.

His father smiled warmly at him.

“Have fun, son, and let me know when you want me to come pick you up.”

Adam smiled back, unable to meet his father’s eyes, but it wasn’t due to his condition; he genuinely felt upset that he was lying to his kind, loving father.

“Thanks, dad.” He closed the car door gently, standing by the passenger’s side, waving at his father as he pulled out of the parking lot and drove all the way back home.

Adam watched his father drive off into the night, and he heard gentle footsteps approaching behind him.

He didn’t turn around, but he heard the sweet, deep voice at the back of his neck brush against his skin.

“Hello, darling.”

………………………………….

Nigel held open the coffee shop door, allowing Adam to walk in ahead of him and pick a little table meant to sit at least four people all the way at the back of the shop by the windows. Adam looked out into the dark parking lot while Nigel bought himself a hot cup of coffee, and a smoothie-blueberry flavoured-for Adam.

He walked back to their seats, sitting down in front of Adam, sliding the smoothie across the clean table and into Adam’s elbow.

Adam snapped out of his observations outside, and he blushed once his eyes accidentally ran over Nigel’s form ahead of him across the table.

Nigel looked absolutely fantastic. He was wearing sunglasses, despite it being nighttime, but it was more for fashion and aesthetics. He was wearing a dark brown leather biker jacket, the collar propped up to rest over the bottom half of the interesting tattoo of the beautiful woman on the side of his neck, and he wore dark, ripped jeans with black boots. He had a small stubble on his face, some grey hairs present within the short stubble, and his hair was hanging loosely, most of it covering his forehead, curtaining down to the sides of the sunglasses, casting a small shadow over his face that made him appear slightly mysterious, almost.

Adam felt himself blushing the longer he studied Nigel, so he quickly looked down at his smoothie instead, playing with the yellow straw in the center of the cup.

“Thanks Nigel.”

“You look so good, darling.”

Adam suddenly felt nervous, wondering how Nigel saw him. Did he see him as a little child? Did he think he was dressed funny? Adam felt more self-conscious than he had ever been before, but he tried not to let it show as he sipped his smoothie through the straw, while Nigel gazed at him through the sunglasses.

Adam felt the cold rush against his teeth, and it burned its way through the back of his throat, so he stopped sipping, moving back in his seat.

Nigel reached up and with his index finger gripping onto the side of his sunglass lenses, he pulled and lowered the sunglasses slightly so the top of his eyelids and eyes flashed playfully and intently at Adam. Nigel’s eyes seemed to follow Adam’s every little move right down to the dot, and Adam suddenly found himself wishing Nigel would stop staring at him like he had never seen him before.

He shifted in his seat nervously, Nigel’s eyes still not leaving his body.

“I hope you are enjoying your drink, darling,” Nigel began, eyes running up and down Adam’s body almost as if he enjoyed watching how uncomfortable Adam was, “…I wasn’t sure which flavor was your favourite, but I just made a small guess.”

“Thanks.” Adam whispered between them, still shifting against the back of the seat, feeling the warmth that the friction created help him feel slightly better, though not too much.

“Was I right?” Nigel asked happily, still not taking his eyes off Adam.

“Huh?” Adam asked, slowing down his movements under Nigel’s heavy gaze.

“Was I right about the smoothie, darling?”

Adam nodded, genuinely meaning his answer. “Yes, I actually like blueberries. My mom and I used to go berry picking a lot when I was younger and when she had more free time for me from her work, but then she found this new job, and she-”

Adam froze in the middle of his ramblings, eyes darting up to catch Nigel pulling down the zipper of his dark brown leather jacket.

It was rather warm inside the coffee shop, and Adam knew Nigel was still listening to his story as he pulled the zipper of the jacket down to the middle of his chest, revealing a white shirt beneath the jacket, but Adam suddenly felt…extremely odd and strange…

He felt dizzy, extremely out of breath, like he had been running for hours, his mouth felt dry, his throat dried up as well, and he couldn’t swallow. His tongue felt too big in his mouth, and his fingers and toes began tingling and feeling numb…what was going on?

Nigel continued lowering the zipper, and then Adam realized the feeling had stemmed from Nigel unzipping his jacket and revealing his strong, slightly tanned neck, heavyset broad shoulders, and skin. Adam felt his heart racing, and before he could embarrass himself, he rose to his feet, leaned over the table, and he placed his hands over Nigel’s before he could pull down the zipper the rest of the way.

“Stop, please!” He gasped out, his breath shaking.

A few people in the coffee shop who were sitting far away stopped chatting, and they craned their heads and necks over to Nigel and Adam for a few moments, shaking their heads or smiling awkwardly before they returned to their beverages and conversation.

Adam sat back down, wringing his hands nervously a few times, blushing like a red beet, his head hung low and eyelashes fluttering about up and down wildly.

Nigel’s hands remained still, not moving an inch where Adam had stopped them. They simply rested in the middle of his chest, and his eyes were frozen on the top of Adam’s head for a long time before he whispered gently:

“Do that again, Adam.”

“Shh!” Adam hissed, glaring up at Nigel for half a second before he lowered his eyes and head again to the floor. He felt a little embarrassed and strange at Nigel's tone of voice, as it almost seemed to be coaxing and luring him into something he found he could want, as well...

“Adam, please…”

“Nigel, stop!” Adam whined desperately and feverishly at him, grabbing his smoothie and placing it on his lap beneath the table.

Nigel sighed and slowly zipped his jacket up again, straight to the top.

“Alright, darling.”

It was awkward and silent between them for a few minutes, the only sounds in the coffee shop coming from the soft chattering of the few customers, the slow, soft jazz music playing on the radio, and the occasional car or motorcycle driving past in the streets.

Adam looked up at Nigel, feeling much better and more comfortable once his jacket was zipped back up.

“Thank you.” Adam nodded at him, resuming sipping his smoothie.

Nigel winked at him playfully before pushing up his sunglasses.

“No problem.”

Adam looked about the coffee shop, lips wrapped around his straw as the smoothie slowly sipped down to the lower half of his cup before Nigel began drumming his fingers on the table.

“Adam.”

“Hmm?” Adam looked up at Nigel as he placed his cup back on the table, wiping away some of the dew and water from the outside of the smoothie cup before it could go all over the table.

“Let’s go to my car, gorgeous. I need to talk to you about something.”

Adam hadn’t been prepared for that, so he shrugged and then shook his head.

“We can talk right here, Nigel.”

Nigel shook his head once, a firm negative.

“It’s something…private…” He looked back at a customer leaving the shop, the front doorbell dinging as he opened, then closed the door.

Adam cocked an eyebrow up at Nigel curiously.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Nigel swallowed thickly, feeling his pants beginning to tighten around the front between his legs, and he bit down on his tongue, trying to keep his self-control in check before it was too late. It just seemed quite an impossible task to complete when Adam was so fucking pure and so very innocent…

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong, Adam,” he began, suddenly wishing he could steal away that innocence and keep it for himself, feeling partly jealous of Adam's purity, but also partly in admiration of it, “…I just want to talk to you somewhere else, please.”

Nigel had never wanted to corrupt and ruin something so precious and perfectly innocent in his entire life as much as he wanted to ruin and corrupt the young boy before him. He didn’t want to physically hurt the kid, but he wanted to drain away that beautiful, wonderfully white purity until there was perhaps a small glimmer of it left…then he would carefully drain that last bit away too, as he kept Adam all for himself…

“Alright, let’s go.”

Nigel could barely contain his excitement and feelings in check once Adam’s soft, adorable voice hit his ears.


	7. Forbidden Tactility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff happens in this chapter...just an fyi

**_Chapter 6_ **

 

Nigel guided Adam through the dark parking lot of the Starbucks to where his car was parked, which was nearly at the back end of the shop. Given that the car was a black color Toyota Avensis, he knew Adam wouldn’t be able to see it right away in the dark, unless he unlocked it, which he did as soon as they had stepped out and turned around to the right of the shop.

The horn honked once the car had been unlocked, but instead of jumping in surprise or fright as he had before, Adam turned and smiled at Nigel, then he ran towards the passenger’s side door, but he didn’t climb in or open the door; he simply waited for Nigel.

Nigel walked a little closer, then nearly felt a heart attack coming when he looked up at Adam, then he felt far overwhelmed and overtaken; like a man stranded at sea, hit and tossed about forcefully by hundreds of strong, violent waves.

The night breeze was gentle and subtle, but the way it had blown back Adam’s side bangs made Nigel feel entirely lost and mesmerized. The wind seemed to caress Adam’s hair back, and it revealed his pink, flush cheeks, and wonderful forehead, clean, clear, and absolutely spotless. Adam inhaled the fresh air that had blown their way, and the way his chest rose when he took in air was practically a sight from heaven, in Nigel’s eyes (and he didn’t even fucking believe in heaven and hell!).

Nigel knew he was done for as he looked on at Adam standing tall in the wind, eyes slightly half-lidded as he turned on the spot by the door and enjoyed the night breeze, his hands slightly raised as he laughed to himself in his own personal, private form of amusement.

That was when Nigel felt a bit jealous and slightly upset. He wanted Adam to laugh and be pleased, of course! But he wanted him to be the ultimate, and only source of Adam’s happiness and laughter. Wherever Adam’s laughter sounded, Nigel wanted to follow and be present, always.

_I don’t ever want to see you upset, gorgeous…_

Nigel ignored his thoughts as he opened the door for Adam, and didn’t move to sit down until Adam had, first.

Once inside the car, Nigel fastened his seatbelt and turned on the engine, checking his mirror before he began backing out of the parking lot.

“Hey!” Adam suddenly cried, causing Nigel to slam on the breaks abruptly, and he eyed his friend with concern.

“Darling? What’s wrong?”

Adam looked ahead, then back out the windows.

“I thought we were just going to talk here?” He shyly asked, wringing his hands nervously in his lap.

The sight of it made Nigel’s heart sink, and he cursed and screamed at himself internally for not asking Adam’s permission first before he drove off like a big moron.

“Do you really just want to stay in this weird empty parking lot, darling?” He asked back, looking at Adam with a soft, calm facial expression that mirrored his tone of voice. He didn’t want Adam to feel uncomfortable or frightened, and he was prepared to carry out whatever Adam wished for them to do. All he had to do was say the word.

Adam blushed and then smiled warmly. “You’re right, Nigel. We can go somewhere else to talk.”

“Are you absolutely certain, gorgeous?” Nigel asked, wanting to be sure as he felt the vibrations from his engine stretch into his arms as he rested them over the steering wheel.

Adam nodded, “Yes. We can go anywhere you want.”

Nigel again felt the familiar hot feelings of lust and desire pang throughout his body, but he squirmed down hard in his seat, and then shifted from side-to-side, moving his thighs up and down over his erection in hopes of calming himself down and in hopes that Adam wouldn’t see it, most of all.

“Alright, darling. Let’s go.”

He coughed, cleared his throat, and pulled away from the Starbucks without another thought, however, he stole more than his fair share of licentious, concupiscent glances at Adam through his sunglasses as they drove on.

Nigel had to stop himself from reaching out with his right hand and stroking Adam’s soft skin whenever they drove directly under a street light, which caused Adam’s beautifully enchanting, youthful face to become illuminated by the light.

However, Nigel’s body didn’t seem to agree with his brain, and his right hand left the steering wheel numerous times, and stretched out slightly, fingers aching to touch Adam, but whenever Adam turned to look at Nigel, Nigel’s hands found their way either to the back of his neck, pretending they were massaging out a knot or tension, or wove their way through his hair, pretending they were fixing and combing back his hair instead.

_How am I supposed to stay away from him when he looks so damn good? So delicate…supple…_

They drove on until Nigel found a small park, and he pulled up close to the riverside, his tires screeching and bumping over the gravel as they slid in between a few bushes and beneath the canopy and shadows of two small trees. Behind the shrubbery was the river, and Nigel knew in the daytime many visitors liked to come by and visit, but the nighttime view looked so much more…enticing and alluring…

The moon was out, but it was half crescent, and hidden well between thick, heavy clouds which obeyed the wind’s command, as it blew them whichever way and direction it chose to.

Adam looked ahead at the riverbank, and sat up in his seat, despite his seatbelt holding him back slightly.

“Wow…it looks even nicer at night, Nigel!”

Nigel smiled at him from behind the sunglasses. “You’ve been here before?”

Adam nodded joyfully, “Yes, with my parents! I often come to feed the ducks! They’ve had a lot of ducklings by now.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah, it’s really cute.”

Nigel took off his sunglasses, eyes still on Adam’s face.

“You’re cute.”

Adam coughed, then chuckled, blushing furiously as he saw Nigel take off, then place his sunglasses on the dashboard carefully before turning to him and unbuckling his own seatbelt.

Adam didn’t move, but Nigel sat back in his seat, the little ‘swooshing’ noise of the seatbelt reclining upwards in its placement the only sound present in the car. Adam heard Nigel breathing softly through his nose, and he seemed relatively relaxed, looking momentarily at the dark water, then back at Adam. His eyes gleamed brightly like little stars, which were Adam’s favourite things, so he smiled back a large, wide smile in the silence.

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something private, Nigel.” Adam reminded him gently when he felt they were silent and staring at each other for far too long.

Nigel gave a slight nod followed by a head tilt. “Do you want to talk about it now, Adam?”

Adam shrugged a little shrug, “Sure.”

Nigel sighed, but it was more so a sigh of relief and happiness than a heavy, sad sigh.

“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, Adam, just remember that.” He said first, and when Adam nodded, he continued.

“I hope I’m not making you feel weird, gorgeous, but have you kissed anyone yet?”

Adam blushed furiously. He had always wanted to kiss and hold Beth before, and while majority of his classmates boasted that they had already kissed and made out with their girlfriends and boyfriends, Adam had wanted to reserve the special first kiss for Beth. He’d wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for them, so he hadn’t really mentioned it to her or Kelly, or anyone else, for that matter. He just felt that when the perfect moment arrived, the kiss would also happen quite perfectly and naturally.

Adam shrugged again, really unsure of how to answer that question, but he decided the truth was the best, despite how private and special he wanted the moment to be for both himself and Beth.

“No, I want to kiss Beth, though.”

That was when Nigel’s head shot upwards, and his eyebrows fell and lowered in a slight disappointed frown.

“Who’s Beth?” He asked in a deep rumble, but it sounded calm still, to Adam’s ears anyway.

“She’s my best friend.” Adam answered truthfully once again.

Nigel chuckled, “Then who am I, Adam?”

Adam paused, giving it some thought. It was true that Nigel had been a great friend to him, but Adam hadn’t ever referred to Nigel as his ‘best friend’, yet. He figured it was alright to have a male best friend, and a female one too, so he smiled and answered:

“You’re also my best friend, Nigel.”

This seemed to please the older man, but he still had a pained expression painted on his face, probably still due to Adam mentioning he wanted to kiss Beth.

“Do you want to kiss all your best friends, then?” Nigel playfully asked, turning his body more to face Adam in his seat, his smile disappearing as he anticipated the answer.

Adam tilted his head in confusion, and it made Nigel’s heart sting, but he couldn’t deny his jealousy this time. He didn’t like this ‘Beth’, person, but if she made Adam happy, he wouldn’t come in between their friendship; he’d just have to approach Adam in a different manner…

Adam laughed, “Of course I don’t want to kiss all my best friends, Nigel! That’s weird and gross!”

“Would it be gross to kiss me?”

Nigel knew he should have shut his fucking mouth at once. As a forty-two-year-old adult, he should’ve had way better self-control, and a strong sense of managed self-composure. He should’ve been thinking about his words before he uttered them, and he should have been a lot wiser and calm about his emotions. He knew fully well what he was feeling, and what he had said to the young boy, but it was far too late to go back on it, and part of him was curious as to what Adam would say now.

Deciding to feed his wild curiosity, Nigel leaned a bit closer towards Adam, but kept his hands on his thighs, the warmth from how badly he had been sweating seeping through his jeans and burning his skin.

Adam stammered and gaped at Nigel, his jaw lowering, then closing a few times before he mumbled out:

“No, not really…”

Nigel felt his heart skip more than two beats, however humanly possible it was.

“What?” He had to hear it again for his own ears.

Adam grabbed onto the armrest of his seat, playing with the cushion as he dug his fingers deeply into it.

“Well you’re not unattractive, Nigel; you’ve got a very nice body, a handsome face, and your accent-although it is sometimes strange to listen to-is very interesting and pulls me in! You’re very kind and nice to me, and I like your personality. There’s a lot I enjoy about you, so why wouldn’t I want to ki-”

Two warm, large hands grabbed both his cheeks, and warm lips covered his next words. Adam felt rough, tickly stubble brush against his soft, clear skin, and the new sensation made him lean closer against the roughness, and he rubbed his face against the contrasting roughness. He rested his forehead against Nigel’s, his own little pink lips pressing firmly against Nigel’s.

Adam felt Nigel’s hands heating up his face more so than his own blush did, but he found he didn’t mind it at all. He was up close right against Nigel, leaning over his seat as Nigel leaned over his, and he could taste and smell Nigel fully. Nigel smelled distinctly of cigarettes and coffee, but Adam found he really liked that smell, and he drew closer into Nigel, pressing down with more force on the older man’s lips.

So this is what kissing felt like! Adam could see, and understand now, why all his classmates had enjoyed kissing. It was absolutely sensationally addictive, and it felt amazing. Nigel’s heat and body pressure seemed to have been what Adam had been missing out on this entire time, and he wanted more of it as he gently grabbed onto Nigel’s coat sleeves.

Adam couldn’t believe he had had his first kiss! Everyone was right about how wonderfully special the first kiss always was! Adam knew he couldn’t have shared his first kiss with anyone else, as Nigel’s lips fit perfectly over his own, as if they were made to devour Adam’s lips…he felt butterflies flying and fluttering through his chest and down to his stomach as he allowed Nigel to kiss him, knowing there couldn’t have been anyone better for him to give his first, special kiss to.

Nigel suddenly tore his mouth off Adam’s, and he pushed away from the young boy abruptly. He breathed heavily through his nose and mouth, panting down at Adam, eyes soaking up the sight as Adam stared back at Nigel’s lips. He wished Nigel could kiss him again, over and over and over…

“If you keep staring at me like that, gorgeous, I’ll never ever let you get out of this car.”

“I’m sorry!” Adam felt ashamed, and he turned away from Nigel in his seat, looking instead out the window. What had he done wrong?

He felt Nigel’s arms on his shoulders, and he turned himself around gently.

“Don’t you dare apologize, Adam. You are fucking beautiful, and fucking perfect.” Nigel looked down at Adam, his eyes bearing no lies or hidden meanings. Adam somehow felt that Nigel wasn’t lying or exaggerating at all, and he smiled, resting his forehead against Nigel’s chest.

The warmth of the leather jacket was comforting and welcoming, and Adam closed his eyes as he rested against the warmth. He felt Nigel’s hands reaching around him, and he held him closer.

“Adam,” Nigel breathed down on the top of Adam’s head, “would you like to sit on my lap?”

Adam sat back, admiring Nigel’s pink lips in the soft lights of the moon and stars, but he also wondered why Nigel would want him to sit on his lap when he was enjoying their closeness currently.

“Why?” Adam inquired, eyes fluttering down to gaze at Nigel’s chin and neck.

“Because I want you to, gorgeous.”

Adam remembered he had always sat on his father’s lap and been rocked playfully back and forth many times when he was a toddler, so this couldn’t be too different. Nigel perhaps wanted him to be comfortable and wanted them to be closer, so it wasn’t anything to wonder or worry about.

Adam nodded, moving up in his seat.

“Sure Nigel, I’ll sit on your lap!”

Nigel growled playfully, his lips nibbling and rubbing against Adam’s ear while he took off his jacket quickly. He then tossed it in the backseat.

“Such a good boy.”

Adam laughed once Nigel’s warm breath hit his ear.

“Nigel! Your stubble and breath is tickling me!”

Nigel gently grabbed both of Adam’s hands, and he guided him over from his seat onto his, carefully spreading his long legs so Adam could sit between them comfortably on his lap.

Adam felt his back and bum hit the steering wheel, but it wasn’t painful or too uncomfortable, so he sat, looking at Nigel’s forehead while Nigel placed Adam’s arms over his own shoulders, and then lowered his hands onto Adam’s waist.

“Better?” Nigel smirked at him in the dimly lit car.

Adam chuckled, “Yes, this is okay, Nigel.”

“Do you like being on my lap, Adam?” Nigel asked, running his hands through Adam’s hair, pushing it back like he had seen the wind doing earlier before their drive.

Adam nodded bashfully, his blush heating up Nigel’s hand.

“I like it…”

Nigel ran his hands down from Adam’s hair, down to his chest over his jacket, then lower around his waist, before sliding over to his lower back, simply resting there for a moment.

“Adam, can I kiss you?” He asked, rubbing Adam’s back from side-to-side, watching him eagerly, his eyes bearing fascination and admiration.

Adam thought about it for a moment, and he felt his heart fluttering, but it wasn’t a bad or nervous type of fluttering. He just wanted to kiss Nigel again, and smell his smoke and coffee breath, so he leaned forward this time, his lips inches away from Nigel’s.

“Yes.” He breathed a soft whisper.

Nigel smiled happily at him, opening his lips to capture Adam’s as he leaned forward into the boy.

Adam felt Nigel’s hands cradling his lower back, and he sighed into their kiss, his ears hearing the night owls and the crickets outside the car. The ambiance and night sounds outside the car relaxed Adam, and he sunk further into Nigel’s lap, feeling so warm and comfortable, he could sleep there, practically.

He craned his neck to the side once he felt the tip of Nigel’s nose rest against his soft skin, and then he gasped in pleasure when Nigel pressed one little kiss to his neck after smelling him briefly.

“Nigel!” Adam giggled, shifting back a bit.

“Hmm?” Nigel responded softly, admiring Adam’s pale neck.

“Don’t smell me!”

“I can’t help it, darling. You smell and taste divine…”

Adam felt his heart racing with joy when Nigel said that about him. He had never expected any of this to happen, and though some parts of it still frightened him, Adam felt he was safe with Nigel, and he felt Nigel would take care of him. He relaxed against the steering wheel, feeling Nigel’s lips press soft little kisses along his neck, and he closed his eyes, simply enjoying them for minutes.

Wherever Nigel kissed him, his skin marked and burned with passion and happiness. Adam didn’t know exactly what was happening to his body, but he could recall some of his classmates talking about how they felt when they kissed and made out with their boyfriends and girlfriends…did this mean Nigel was his boyfriend now?

Adam opened his eyes, getting lost in his thoughts. Should he ask Nigel if he wanted to be his boyfriend? Adam didn’t want to force that idea onto Nigel, but he also knew he really was starting to like Nigel a bit more than a friend…he almost liked Nigel as much as he liked Beth now!

Adam had been thinking about what to say to Nigel about all this, when he felt the back of his spring jacket rising a bit, and the cool night breeze hit his sweaty back and shirt. He gasped, sliding closer against Nigel, but then sighed in comfort and relief when he felt Nigel’s warm hand slide up inside his shirt along his back, caressing smoothly and softly.

He closed his eyes again, deciding to bury his nose in Nigel’s hair. Nigel smelled wonderful and clean. He smelled of a spicy scent, and Adam couldn’t decipher what exactly it was. He once again began thinking of being Nigel’s boyfriend, when he felt his jeans belt loosening, and then the waistline of the jeans loosening and lowering slightly…

Adam froze, trying to feel and understand how that had happened, and he let out a curious gasp when he felt Nigel’s warm hand inch down lower, resting on top of his bum over his boxers.

Despite feeling a bit scared and bashful, Adam couldn’t help the natural movements and responses his body provided against the warm feeling of Nigel’s hand. Almost against all his own control, Adam felt his hips push back against Nigel’s hand, and he moved back and forth slowly over Nigel’s lap and thighs.

Nigel let out a deep, long, pleasured groan, causing Adam to freeze. The sound was the most pleasurable thing Adam ever heard, and he wanted to hear it again.

Nigel took the lead, next, and he pushed back the waistband of the boxers, and his hand eagerly and swiftly dove down to grab Adam’s warm, nude cheeks.

Adam gasped, falling forward into Nigel, and he grabbed tightly onto the back of the driver’s chair above Nigel’s head.

Nigel kissed Adam’s neck gently, as his hands grabbed and massaged the plump, firm cheeks a few times, his fingertips hooking and lingering on Adam’s muscles a few seconds before releasing him and then running his fingers up and down slowly and sensually.

Suddenly, a faint pressure ran down the middle of his lower back, and Adam felt Nigel’s hands running down the length of where his bum was split in half. His body jerked up at the first contact to his center, as Nigel applied the slightest pressure right in between.

“N-Nigel…”

Adam didn’t understand where exactly Nigel was touching, for he couldn’t see in the dark at all. He looked down between them to see Nigel’s front pressed against his, legs draped and wrapped over legs, but he couldn’t make out any more than that.

The pressure increased. Adam squirmed, unsure if he wanted to move towards or away from the feeling. His body seemed to provide some solutions, and he pressed his hips again back against the warmth that was now just hovering slightly over the opening to his body. Nigel rubbed back and forth, raising his head up and watching Adam intently. His fingers slid back further, over Adam’s center, and Adam gasped, moaning loudly as he jerked again, one hand reaching out to grab Nigel’s free arm, digging his nails in the bare skin.

His fingers were right, present hotly against Adam’s warm, soft center, not pressing, but very… there. Adam was surprised as he fought the urge to push down onto the digits in his boxers.

“Nigel…” He whispered again in the hot car, and he was about to ask what Nigel was doing, when he suddenly felt one firm, hot pressure slide forward, and press inside. It was a quick, sudden movement, and it was firm. It happened in a few quick seconds, faster than the blink of an eye.

“Oh!”

Adam felt a searing, tearing pain, followed by a clenching, dull, aching throb, and he was unable to contain and hold back his cry of discomfort and displeasure.

He slapped his hands against the headrest of the driver’s seat, and Nigel stopped all his movements for a while.

He looked up to see Adam biting down on his lower lip, eyes clenched shut, face scrunched up, eyebrows knotted together. He felt his hands slapping at his seat, and he immediately withdrew the pressure.

Adam took in a deep breath of relief, feeling the stinging, and burning lessen once the pressure had been removed, but he still felt very upset and uncomfortable.

As soon as he felt Nigel’s hands move out of his boxers, Adam fell to the side, and he turned and fell back in his own seat. He quickly pulled up his jeans, fastening and fixing the belt once he zipped himself back up, not looking at Nigel a single time.

He held tightly onto his jacket, tightening, and weaving it around himself as he folded his arms over his chest and clamped his thighs tightly shut together, feet firmly planted on the floor of the car as he looked ahead at the dark river.

His chin quivered as he felt his center throbbing as it burned more with pain, but he found if he sat still, it didn’t hurt as much, and it would hopefully go away soon.

“Gorgeous?” Nigel’s concerned, sad tone suddenly hit his ears, but Adam didn’t make any effort to look at Nigel. He just didn’t want to meet his eyes right now, for he felt very ashamed. Nigel had done something…strange to his body. He didn’t like it, but he had liked the kissing. He only wanted to kiss Nigel; not do the thing Nigel had done under his boxers! Whatever that was, it only caused pain, it didn’t feel too good, and Adam wanted to forget it ever happened.

Nigel leaned across his seat, hands gently reaching out to touch Adam’s chin, but Adam turned his head to the right and looked out his side of the window.

“Baby, please, I’m sorry!” Nigel cried in exasperation, his tone sounding whiny and needy as he breathed heavily through his nose.

“I’m sorry, Adam! Please look at me?” Nigel’s index finger grazed Adam’s chin, trying to carefully coax him to meet his sorrowful eyes, but Adam unfolded one hand from his chest to gently push Nigel’s hand down and away from his chin.

“I want to go home.”

Nigel felt his heart shattering into a trillion fucking pieces. What had happened? He’d lost himself in the kid’s moans and soft cries, one moment, basking in his body heat and scent, only to have him snap away and close himself off to his touches and strokes the next! It had all happened in less than a second, and it upset and hurt Nigel more than being shot in the head.

He felt his stomach bottoming out, and he felt nervous and nauseous all at the same time. What had he done?!?

Nigel felt that he needed to leave Adam alone for now; he had clearly upset his darling, and he wanted to give him time and space to think about this first, before they could talk again. Nigel only knew he was willing to do whatever it took to make this right again. He couldn’t stand making Adam upset, and it burned and singed his heart, and charred the fuck out of his soul worse than any fire could. He felt like the biggest piece of shit in the world as he watched with sad eyes as Adam looked out the window, shoulders shaking as he tried keeping himself still and together.

Nigel wanted to shoot himself a hundred times in the head worse than the cop had done to him. How could he have done such a horrible thing to his Adam? He’d never forgive himself for this!

Trying to keep his emotions from spilling over, Nigel nodded, turning his keys in the ignition, turning on the car.

“I’ll take you home, Adam.”

Adam suddenly turned back to look at the dashboard, a concerned expression crossing over his young face.

“I’ll have to tell you where I live!” He said in a slightly panicked tone of voice as his eyes shifted about the car.

Nigel felt even more upset and pained. Adam wanted to distance himself even further from him, now, and it was extremely sad to hear and watch.

Trying to placate and play it down, Nigel forced a small laugh.

“Don’t worry gorgeous, I’m not going to start stalking you or anything.”

Apparently, Adam didn’t share in this sense of humour, and he looked down at his feet sadly.

Nigel bit down on his tongue, calling himself every filthy curse word he could drum up as he pulled out from beneath the trees and out of the park.

“Please, darling. I just want you to get home safely, that’s all.”

Adam nodded, though he seemed reluctant, still, as his body posture was stiff, and he hadn’t moved his arms away from his chest at all.

“Alright, I live on 22 Highview Road, Nigel.”

………………………………….

Adam frantically looked outside the darkness of the windows once he and Nigel pulled up a few feet away from the apartment. Adam had insisted Nigel didn’t walk him to his doorstep, no matter how hard, and how much Nigel pleaded and begged. Nigel obeyed his wish, and kept the engine on while Adam slowly undid his seatbelt.

“I’m so sorry I did that to you, gorgeous. I’m a fucking idiot.” Nigel hung his head low, and this time didn’t look at Adam.

“I’m such a mess, I just couldn’t help it, but it wasn’t right because it hurt you and that’s the last thing in the world I want to do to you, darling!”

Nigel’s voice began rising in pitch and volume, and Adam suddenly felt a bit bad for Nigel. Despite what had happened in the car earlier, Adam understood fully well that Nigel wasn’t a bad man. He was a good friend so far to Adam, and he took care of him and did nice things for him. Bad people didn’t do that, and Adam had seen and recognized his fair share of bad people. Nigel simply wasn’t one of them. He had made a mistake, but it happened even between Adam and Beth, and they had been friends for a long time.

Adam watched as Nigel covered his eyes with a hand and hung his head lower over his steering wheel in shame, his shoulders lowering and caving in as he breathed heavily and quickly through his nose.

Adam wanted to comfort and be there for his friend like Nigel had for him, so he leaned over his seat, pushing the belt the rest of the way out of his way, and he wrapped his arms around Nigel’s shoulders, bringing him into a gentle hug.

“Shh, it’s okay, Nigel.”

Nigel gasped, his breath shaky, but returned the hug once he heard Adam’s soft voice soothing his pained heart.

“Shhh. I’m not mad at you, Nigel.”

Nigel kissed Adam’s fingers once he unhooked them from his shoulders. He kissed each finger feverishly, as if he were worshipping them, and it caused Adam to blush, but he allowed it.

“I’ll never ever do anything you’re not 100% comfortable with, darling. I promise you.”

Nigel looked deeply into Adam’s eyes, and Adam knew he meant his promise whole-heartedly.

“I know, Nigel. It’s okay.” He gently wrapped his fingers around Nigel’s bigger, longer ones, captivated by how greatly they differed in size compared to his.

Nigel closed his hand over Adam’s, holding their hands together tightly.

“Thank you, Adam.”

Adam smiled, still looking at their clasped hands.

“It’s no problem, Nigel. We were just doing what girlfriends and boyfriends do, so that means you’re my boyfriend.”

Nigel’s hand went limp and lifeless in Adam’s, and it fell down on Adam’s armrest.

“I beg your pardon, darling?” Nigel practically choked on the words, his eyes wide and mouth wide open in awe and shock.

Adam looked away, feeling sad again.

“I keep saying the wrong things. I’m sorry. I won’t ever call you my boyfriend again.” He turned and grabbed the car door handle, but Nigel’s arms landed on his, and he yanked him over his seat towards his chest.

“Nigel?”

Adam’s protests and questions were cut short when Nigel’s strong, warm hands pulled his head up, and Nigel’s lips possessively closed over Adam’s open ones.

Adam felt his heart leaping out of his chest and into the roof of the car, he was so happy Nigel had kissed him again! He relaxed into the kiss, his lower lip lowering, mouth opening slightly when Nigel’s teeth grazed against it, then pressed Adam’s lips fully closed over his own.

Nigel kissed him passionately and almost desperately, running his hands over the back of his neck and up into his hair, gently tugging on a few strands as he sighed against Adam’s little lips.

Adam had seen a few romantic movies in the past when his parents were out working, and he had seen the way the couples in the movies sometimes licked and bit at each other’s mouths. Adam didn’t really understand how that couldn’t be painful, but he saw the people enjoying it, so he decided to try it out on Nigel. He clamped down on Nigel’s lower lip with his teeth, slightly tugging on the thick flesh, and it caused Nigel to unexpectedly groan loudly.

Nigel’s lips pushed so hard and forcefully against Adam’s, that Adam’s head and neck snapped back slightly, hitting the car window as Nigel forced himself more closely into Adam.

Feeling the need for air, Adam gently pushed his hands against Nigel’s chest, but he tried kissing him back as passionately as Nigel was.

Before Adam’s inexperienced kisses and bites could turn him on more, and make him lose whatever last semblance of control he had left, Nigel reluctantly broke the kiss, turning his head to the side as he gathered Adam into his arms and held him tightly for many long minutes.

“Of course I’ll be your boyfriend, my sweet, beautiful Adam.” Nigel breathed out, slightly fogging up the car windows.

“Yes, Nigel, I know.” Adam began squirming from the pressure of Nigel’s hug.

Nigel sighed. This was the happiest day of his life. “Once I have you, you know I’m never leaving you, right Adam? I’m here to stay, whether you like it or not, so choose wisely, gorgeous.” He hadn’t meant to threaten or scare the boy, but Nigel knew himself better than anyone else. He knew how angry, possessive, selfish, dominant, strong, vicious, courageous, and how deeply he loved. He knew he was the best and most suitable partner for Adam, but he was always very jealous and very controlling, as Gabi had said at times. Would Adam be ready to handle all that?

Nigel could give Adam the entire world back over a hundred times, and he would sacrifice anything and everything, every morning until dusk for Adam, just to have in return, one smile from Adam. He would go to heaven and hell, and rearrange the fucking galaxies and the constellations for Adam. He would write Adam’s name with the stars if he had to! But would Adam be able to understand and grasp the concept of possessive, and extreme love?

“I have to go, Nigel. My parents are going to worry!” Adam’s little puffs of air and movements against his stronger, larger body made Nigel wish he could just turn the car back and take Adam home with him, but he knew that would be extremely foolish, and dangerous. He never wanted to ruin what he was slowly creating and building with Adam, so he sluggishly slid away from him, moving his hands up instead to cup his cheeks as he bestowed a small, chaste kiss on Adam’s forehead over his hair.

Nigel allowed his lips to linger on Adam’s forehead for a brief moment, as he closed his eyes and took in Adam’s scent once more for the night. He wished he could bottle in Adam’s unique scent and take it with him everywhere anytime he missed him and wanted a part of his essence…

“Nigel!”

“Shit, sorry darling.” Nigel finally let Adam go, sitting back in his seat while Adam got out of the car. He closed the door softly, and he waved at Nigel quickly before he ran towards his front door.

Nigel watched him ran all the way to the front step, and he felt the pangs of guilt and sadness wreck his body and heart once he saw Adam slightly limping.

“Damn you, Nigel!” He cursed himself, wanting to throw himself into oncoming traffic for ever hurting Adam, though he hadn’t meant to.

Nigel continued watching him as Adam dug out his front door keys, unlocked, and pushed open the door. The hallway lights were lit, and then Nigel felt that was his cue to get the hell out of there.

“I’ll see you soon, my love.” Nigel promised out loud, making a small mental note to discuss their new relationship, and what it meant to him next time he could see Adam. He really felt overwhelmed with emotions overflowing from his heart, spilling over. He didn’t want to smother or drown Adam in them…yet. He had to make him understand how important he was to him, first, then he would somehow have to tell him that he was ready to fight to the ends of the Earth, and perhaps even die for his Adam…all in good time.

He drove off slowly into the dark streets, his thoughts never breaking away from Adam, not even when he reached home.

………………………………….

Adam had barely taken off his shoes, his lower back and bum aching and burning every time he bent or tried sitting down on the last step, but he managed to take off the left shoe when he saw his mother approaching from upstairs.

Adam turned, wincing as his back and bum dragged across the carpeted steps, but he smiled in greeting at his mother.

She had her soft pink night robe on, and her blonde, wavy hair was tied up in a small ponytail. She looked absolutely furious, as her eyes looked down darkly at Adam, narrowing slightly, and her lips were thinned and set in a disappointed glare.

“Do you have any idea what time it is, Adam?” She whispered at him as she made her way down to the last step and stood in front of her son, helping him take off his right shoe.

Adam checked his cellphone quickly and gasped in shame; it was 12:14 AM. He had never been out this late, and he felt he was going to be grounded or punished for sure now.

His mother set his shoes back inside the little shoe rack by the front door, and closed the door with an angry breath.

“I’m sorry, mom…”

“We were worried sick!” She whispered heatedly, whipping around and crossing her arms over her chest as she looked down at Adam.

“I know…”

“We didn’t know when you were coming home, we didn’t know with whom you’d caught a ride! Was it Kelly’s mom or dad who dropped you off?” She inquired worriedly and angrily, walking over and sitting down on the step beside Adam, folding her hands in her lap.

“Yes, it was K-Kelly’s mom.” Adam answered with a lie, voice meek and deflated that it was barely audible.

Adam’s mother sighed out a long sigh, closing her eyes as she held her hands up, and covered her mouth and nose with them, breathing deeply as she rested her elbows on top of her kneecaps. She was silent like that for many minutes before she opened her eyes and lowered her hands away from her mouth and nose.

“You should have told us, Adam.”

“I will next time mom, I promise!” Adam cried, feeling absolutely horrible and guilty that he had hurt his mother this way.

His mother turned and glared daggers at him. “Next time? There won’t be a ‘next time’, Adam.”

Adam felt his heart drop down to his toes.

“What?” He asked in a soft voice. Did that mean he wasn’t going to be able to go out to see Nigel?!? He dearly hoped not…

“From now on, if Kelly wants to work on ANY project with you, or ANYONE else, for that matter, you will do it in THIS house. Do you understand me, young man?” His mother asked, pointing her finger and jabbing it gently against Adam’s chest.

Adam’s thoughts began flying and racing like the wind, wondering how he could answer this to Nigel now, what excuses and little white lies he could create now…what was he going to do?!?

“I said: Do you understand me, Adam?” His mother repeated, waiting for his answer with a cold expression on her face.

Adam gulped nervously, but nodded. “I understand, mom.”

She nodded, “Good. Now get to bed before we both wake up your father.”

Adam stood slowly, not wanting his mother to see he was still in some small pain. He gripped the railing tightly, and began climbing up the stairs to his room, making sure his door was closed and locked firmly behind him before he started crying silently, thick, heavy tears pouring like rain.

………………………………….

Nigel loaded the webpage, cursing his Internet connection speed as he sat down shirtless in front of his laptop.

His angry mood soon disappeared once he remembered what a beautifully magnificent night he’d shared with Adam. Adam had ended the night with a wonderful surprise that he wanted them to be a couple! Nigel couldn’t have asked for a more perfect night in a million years if he begged all of heaven and hell, and he could barely contain the excitement once Darko called his cellphone.

Nigel picked up, eyes still on his laptop screen, the page loading slowly but surely like a snail on crutches.

“Hello Darko.”

He heard a cough. “Holy fuck, where the hell have you been?” Darko began immediately interrogating him, but it made Nigel smile instead of lashing out as he normally would have.

“I was out.”

Darko chuckled, “From the sound of it, it was a special outing, huh?”

Nigel smiled a larger, dopey smile, eyes on the screen, frozen.

“A date…of sorts…”

“Who’s she?” Darko asked curiously.

“He.”

Darko didn’t speak for a moment, but Nigel knew he was fully accepting of anything, which was the perfect reason why they’d been friends for as long as they had been.

“Right, who’s he?” Darko asked with a small chuckle, though it wasn’t for the purposes of mocking or being sarcastic. He had never seen his friend with a man before, but he figured that Nigel being Nigel, had to try everything at least once.

“Adam.” Nigel answered, eyes rising along the screen as his page had finally completed loading.

“Adam…that’s nice, that’s very interesting, Nigel.” Darko supplied, seeming to share Nigel’s happiness for a newfound friend and partner.

Darko coughed again before speaking, “You met him in America?”

“Yup.”

Darko chuckled deeply again, then coughed.

“Fucking allergies. So you really like him?”

“It’s love, Darko.” Nigel answered quickly and confidently.

Darko snorted, “Woah woah…hang on there, Casanova…you’ve only been on one date with this guy and you’re in love with him?”

Nigel didn’t glare, or scream, or grow angry; he kept smiling.

“It’s love.”

Darko was silent for many minutes before he sighed.

“Just make sure you don’t get hurt again like you did with G…Gabi.”

Nigel shook his head.

“Adam’s not a damn thing like Gabi; he’s a billion times more amazing, and more faithful than Gabi ever fucking was, Darko.”

Darko’s voice presented his happiness and joy for his friend’s new life.

“Good, just make sure you treat each other right, yeah?”

“We will, Darko.”

He heard Darko opening up a can of soda, the ‘psssss’ of the gas hissing across the line like a hiss of a snake.

“So tell me what he looks like!” Darko said, then began gulping down the beverage, and he let out a loud belch afterwards.

Nigel sighed, looking at Adam’s Facebook profile picture, and he zoomed in on the display picture, magnifying and enlarging it until it covered the entire screen. Nigel stared on, his smile growing sloppy, eyes glazing over.

“You should see him, Darko…he’s beautiful…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear lord...


	8. Growing Obsession

**_Chapter 7_ **

**__ **

Adam looked down at his cellphone, a mortified expression crossing his young features as he read through his phone’s Inbox storage. He had over twenty-eight text messages from Nigel, the latest and twenty-ninth one having been sent a few seconds ago.

Adam felt himself going through a myriad of different, strange emotions and feelings he didn’t understand and wasn’t able to relay to anyone, as he shifted through his message logs with his thumb and index finger.

_Friday, May 26 th, sent at 12:58 a.m._

**_hey gorgeous, i wanted to say i miss u, and had a good time.  
xoxo Nigel_ **

_Friday, May 26 th, sent at 3:44 a.m._

**_i keep dreaming of u xoxo_ **

_Saturday, May 27 th, sent at 7:23 a.m._

**_can i c u soon, gorgeous? Xoxo Nigel_ **

_Saturday, May 27 th, sent at 11:52 a.m._

**_r u havin’ a gud afternoon, darling? give me a call, please_ **

_Saturday, May 27 th, sent at 2:03 p.m._

**_did u get my last text, darling?_ **

Adam felt his face flaring up as he read through some of the needier ones, especially the last one Nigel had sent right before Adam’s Monday morning World Politics class began.

**_i need to c u, Adam. Call me, else i’ll call u! missing u so much_ ** **_:(_ **

Adam felt a warm breath behind his shoulders and on his ear, and he pocketed his phone, turning around abruptly to find Beth standing behind him, eyes beaming at him as she threw her arms around him for a tight, close hug.

“Did you have a good weekend, Adam?” She asked as she let him go, shifting her pink tank top and dark skinny jeans to straighten out as their teacher, Mr. Keyes, unlocked the classroom door, turned on the lights, and ushered everyone inside slowly.

Adam shrugged, hoping Beth hadn’t glanced at his phone to read any of the text messages. It’s not that he didn’t want to open up to her and talk to her, he just didn’t know exactly how to tell her of his new boyfriend.

“My weekend was okay, Beth.” Adam clutched his textbooks against his chest tightly, and immediately, Beth sensed something was amiss as she studied his body posture. Adam seemed relatively “closed off” to her, and she had known her oldest friend for a long time now to sense when something wasn’t right.

“Huh…” she began, walking beside Adam as the rest of their classmates headed inside the open classroom.

“…are you sure you’re okay? You seem kind of…out of it…” her purple eye-shadowed eyes peered at him almost accusingly, though Adam wasn’t fully able to tell as he looked at his friend out of the corner of his eyes.

Adam felt then that she knew he was acting strange, so he looked up past her at some lockers, and smiled the best smile he could smile.

“Yeah, things were just kind of…slow at home.”

“Slow?” Beth asked, clearly not letting it go.

Adam walked inside the classroom, nodding and slightly waving ‘hello’ to their teacher, Mr. Harlan Keyes, who waved at Adam and Beth in return.

Mr. Keyes was their favourite teacher, for he carried out majority of his lessons quite informally; going so far as to allow the students to call him by his first name, allowing food in the classroom, allowing well-rounded healthy debates to go on, and sometimes allowed music and dancing in the class on Fridays. Adam always enjoyed himself whenever he walked into World Politics, which wasn’t something many other students could proclaim about their other courses.

Adam sat beside Beth at a small, circular table at the far-left hand middle corner of the room. Beth dropped her books and binder on top of the desk, while Adam arranged his neatly in an organized pile.

“So tell me what happened! You’re clearly upset about something, Adam.” Beth prodded him, leaning into him across the table.

Adam turned and looked back at his other classmates.

“Beth! Not now!” He quickly got out his pen as he wrote down the date in his notebook, looking up at the front of the classroom where Mr. Keyes was already writing down a lengthy note on the whiteboard.

Beth groaned and rested her forehead against the table, her forehead connecting with the wood in a slight “thud”.

“Shh!” Adam whispered, trying to drown out her whines and pleas as he paid attention to their teacher.

Finally giving up, Beth frowned, sat back in her seat, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Fine then, be that way, Adam. But you gotta tell me at some point!”

With that, she too began opening her notebook, and flipping to a blank page to jot down her notes.

Adam looked down at his own sheet, and didn’t look back up at his friend until the bell to end the class rang.

………………………………….

Nigel sat down on his sofa, his hands held together under his chin, eyes looking down expectantly at his phone, as it rested lifelessly and dully on top of his magazines littered on his coffee table.

Nigel hadn’t heard a word from Adam the entire weekend after he had dropped him off at home, and it was frankly beginning to worry and upset him. He felt his nerves beginning to flare up as he brought up the mental image of a billion possibilities, and the more Nigel pondered about them, the worse the scenarios and situations in his mind became.

The last few Nigel had imagined, were that Adam had found someone else he was interested in, had gotten together with that Beth he’d mentioned, already had a girlfriend he never told Nigel about the entire time, or was hurting himself out of shame and sadness from what Nigel had done to him in the car that night.

Nigel felt his heart burning, his throat drying up, his forehead and back burning up with sweat as he anticipated when Adam would text him back. All he wanted was a simple text, letting him know he was alright. That’s all Nigel wanted, and that’s what he had been waiting for all weekend.

He hadn’t meant to bombard the young kid with a million texts, but the more time that went on without a word from his darling, the more frightened and nervous Nigel got. He didn’t like feeling this nervous and on edge, and he knew that it was in Adam’s hands now. However way Adam responded would be Nigel’s ultimate form of relief.

He felt his fingertips tingling and itching with the burning curiosity and incentive to reach out and tap away at Adam’s number, in order to find his satisfactory answer. Nigel knew Adam was more than likely at school, but he wanted to take the chance…

He sat up, inching closer towards the coffee table, his eyes never leaving the cell.

“Come on, darling, please talk to me…” Nigel whispered, waiting for his luck to change, and at the very last minute, hoping, wishing, yearning for the phone to either ring with a call bearing Adam’s beautiful voice, or a text message buzzing through to relieve him of his pains and worries.

Nigel waited, and waited, and his watch ticked away, but the phone didn’t buzz or ring. He felt his heart racing and beating wildly, and he began panicking.

What if Adam was upset with him? What if someone had stolen his phone? What if someone had read their text messages?

Not wanting to take the chances of finding out later and being remorseful, Nigel’s hands swooped down to snatch the phone in his hands, and he held it up to his face, panting and breathing heavily.

“Come on!” He screamed at his phone desperately, as if his screams would result in a call being made.

Nigel unlocked his phone, entering his password hurriedly, missing a few digits and letters in his haste, and messing up the phone log in a few times. This only infuriated him further, and he nearly dropped the phone to smash it against the table out of anger.

Nigel felt his patience wearing thin, but he eventually was able to log into his phone, and he read over his text messages a few times, wondering where he had gone wrong. What had he said to offend or scare off Adam?

His eyes flew through the barrage of texts, but he wasn’t able to locate a single word or phrase which would stand out as something threatening or frightening, and this only upset him deeper.

His thoughts began racing back to the night he had taken Adam out, but Nigel felt that everything he had done to Adam and bestowed upon him was wanted, received well, and welcomed…the boy had returned his kisses and touches, after all! There had been nothing wrong!

Nigel was about to dial Adam’s number to confirm and confront the situation, when his phone suddenly began ringing loudly.

Nigel hurriedly picked up the call, not bothering to check who it was.

“Gorgeous?” He said breathlessly, and the line was silent for a few seconds, making Nigel’s heart race again as he held the phone closely to his ear, then he heard a deep chuckle.

“That’s not something I hear every day, but I’ll take it, Nigel.”

Jack fucking Crawford.

Nigel resisted the innate urge to groan and curse at his poor luck.

“Sorry, I was expecting someone else.” He rubbed his forehead, feeling how hotly his skin burned in shame at the mix up.

Another chuckle came out of Jack, much to Nigel’s growing tension and annoyance.

“That’s alright, I just wanted to check in with you and ask how the next letter’s going?”

_Oh fuck…_

Nigel had been so worried and concerned about his new relationship with Adam, that he totally forgot that he should have been getting an early head start at writing this week’s letter to his pen pal.

_Fuck the letter!_

“Your silence tells me enough. I don’t think I need to remind you that you should have it completed before our next session, right Nigel?” Jack’s leading tone of voice clearly stated that Nigel didn’t have any other choice in the matter, and he growled under his breath.

“Yes, sorry Jack.”

“It’s alright, glad to have talked with you. Have a good day, Nigel.”

“Good day, Jack.”

They hung up simultaneously, and Nigel stood up tall, this time already dialing Adam’s number. There wasn’t anyone who was going to stop him from leaving a message, this time.

………………………………….

Adam sat beside Beth at the cafeteria tables, ignoring the sea of students and the noises they made as they ran around, threw food about, got scolded by teachers and cafeteria monitors, and sang about happily and merrily.

In front of them on the other side of the table, Kelly sat also, waving her hands and speaking of a recent argument she had with her parents about a car she wanted to save up for, when Adam had lost himself in his own thoughts.

He sat, munching away on his macaroni and cheese, while Beth nodded, hand propped under her chin, more wrapped in the conversation than he was. Adam began wondering what exactly he was supposed to say to Nigel, now that his mother had said he wasn’t allowed to go outside anymore. Adam felt trapped, not sure what else to do, and he had kept to himself while also trying to pass off to his friends that nothing was going on.

Beth had left him alone as soon as they sat down, for Kelly had barged in immediately, face red and eyes puffy, calling her father every harsh name she could think of. This had captured Beth’s attention, and she fed off of the family drama, listening on and momentarily forgetting Adam’s hidden feelings for the time being.

“And he sucks! Honestly! I told him I could save up for it with my clerk job at the grocery store, but he’s like: No, Kelly, you have to save that money for your college!”

Kelly furiously moved her hands about, knocking down another student’s water bottle, but thankfully, it was closed.

“Hey!” He bent down to pick it up off the floor.

“Sorry. Anyway, I can pay for it! I’m going to be sixteen soon! As soon as I get my damn license, I’m out of here!” She screamed on, her breath growing short as she finished her long, emotional rant.

Beth nodded approvingly.

“Good for you, Kelly! I never liked your dad! He’s a real assh-”

As loud as a car horn, Adam’s cellphone rang in front of the group. A few other students at their table got quiet, looking at Adam curiously as he fumbled with his pockets, pulling out his phone quickly.

His eyes grew wide as the phone grew louder once he had removed it from his pockets, and his hands and fingers shook and trembled as he swiped and unlocked to the front menu to check the caller.

Beth and Kelly looked over at his phone, Beth craning and turning her neck so she could peek at his screen, but Adam turned his front to her, raising the phone up with the back to Beth’s eyes.

“Hello?”

He heard the loudest, most relieved sigh, and it shocked him, making him back away from Beth on his seat.

“Adam, I missed you, my love.” Nigel’s warm voice right away did funny things to Adam’s stomach and heart, and not wanting to show that in front of Beth’s and Kelly’s inquisitive eyes, Adam immediately hung up on Nigel, throwing his phone down on the table by his lunch.

“Who was that?” Beth asked, looking down at the phone to view Adam’s background photo of Apollo 13 blasting off the Earth and into the sky for its space mission.

Adam shrugged nonchalantly. “Wrong number.”

“Oh. I hate telemarketers! They’re so damn annoying!” Kelly began, already halfway through another rant, when Adam’s phone rang again.

Fumbling to pick it up, Adam held it away from Beth’s curious eyes once more.

“I can’t talk right now!” He tried whispering, but Beth and Kelly being in such close proximity, already heard it, and they exchanged confused glances across the table.

“Gorgeous, please! Don’t hang up on me ever again.” Nigel pleaded, his tone raised in a gentle plea, his breath hitching over the line.

Adam immediately felt bad and guilty, and he lowered his head away from his friends, trying to speak as softly and quietly as possible in the loud cafeteria. He hoped the other students would make enough noise to drown out his conversation.

“I can’t talk right now, I’m so sorry…”

Nigel took another pained breath.

“Adam don’t hang up on me!”

“We’ll talk later.”

“No wai-”

Adam hung up, and this time, he turned off his phone before placing it back in his front pockets.

Beth raised an eyebrow at him, while Kelly shook her head back and forth.

“Who was that now?” Beth asked again, this time in a more neutral tone of voice. Adam was certain she was upset with him, but he was too shy to ask why, and he didn’t want any more attention onto him, and he hoped after this question, Beth would leave him alone to his thoughts.

Adam was a private boy by nature, and he didn’t meddle in anyone’s affairs, and he wished for that same level of courtesy to be respected and returned. He knew his friends deeply cared for him and wanted the best for him, but he wasn’t in the mood or the position to open up the world of confusion he was facing to them, right now.

“It was my dad.” He lied quickly, picking up his spoon and playing with his macaroni for a while before taking a small bite.

Beth sighed and rested her hands in her lap.

“Didn’t sound like you were talking to your dad.”

She looked ahead across the table at Kelly, who momentarily met her eyes for a split second, before lowering her eyesight to the floor.

………………………………….

Nigel slammed his hands and head against his fridge, standing in his kitchen, fighting the urge to scream out at the top of his lungs for Adam. He hadn’t understood why his darling angel had hung up on him twice in less than a few minutes, but he knew for sure that it hurt and burned worse than any physical form of torture Nigel had been through in many years of a life of crime.

His heart and head spun and hurt worse than being smashed in the face repeatedly with a brick, then a hammer. He felt betrayed, only this felt worse than the pain Gabi had brought him. He felt he was losing all bits of control he had left, and he slammed his hands against the fridge again, cursing himself repeatedly for not being good enough to Adam, for not leaving him alone to come to him whenever he was ready…

“Fuck!!!” Nigel roared, and turned to slam his back against the fridge. The contents within rattled and knocked into each other, spilling over and no doubt creating a mess Nigel found he didn’t give a flying fuck about currently.

He knew there was no way he could redial and bother Adam right now, and not having Darko to talk to, given the time difference of the countries, Nigel was going insane. He had no one to turn to and talk to, and he felt he was about to pass out from fear and worry. He could bottle only so much inside before he snapped, and he knew he was reaching his limit…

He turned his head left to peer out the kitchen into the open living room, and he spotted his laptop on his tabletop…

That was when Nigel’s brain offered a small relief; a solution.

He raced over to the table, nearly tripping a few times over his own wobbly, weak feet in the process, but he made it over to his chair, and threw himself down onto it. He felt as if his limbs weighed a ton, but he was able to spin himself over to directly face the laptop, and he brought the screen to life.

He opened up the last letter he had typed out, and opening a new, blank page, he let his emotions write the pains and aches his mind and heart faced.

_Hi there…_

_This week hasn’t been good for me at all. It started out like heaven, because I met the most amazing person in this entire world. I had the blessing to find someone who is a gift sent down to me, and I couldn’t ever imagine how I have lived this long without having this person in my life._

_I don’t even want to think of a future without this person, because I know it’s not possible at all. I love this person so much, but I fear they don’t understand just how much they mean to me, and just how much I love them._

_I don’t want to hurt or scare them, and I know in the end, I’ll end up messing things up, like I always do. I don’t know what to do…_

_I know you’re a young student, and you have your own set of problems ahead of you. But I need to talk to someone, and I want to know what you’d do if you were faced with this type of a situation._

_I’m sorry to have to put you in the middle of this, I really have no one else to talk to. My friend is living in another country, and the time zones differ a lot, so I can’t exactly pocket dial him whenever there’s an issue going on._

_Please, any words of help would be great._

_Thanks,_  
  
N.

Nigel didn’t even hesitate this time, and he attached the letter in an email with Jack’s emails address, and clicked “send”.


	9. The Chilton Ink Blot Test

**_Chapter 8_ **

**__ **

Jack Crawford sat across from Nigel behind his office desk, large hands crossed over his chest, eyes set darkly and almost accusingly glaring forth at Nigel. Jack wore a brown three-piece suit with an ugly green tie, but his attire and sense (or lack thereof) of fashion wasn’t the issue at the moment.

Nigel wasn’t stupid, nor was he born last night. He knew that if he had sent the letter the way he had written it, he’d definitely be called into Jack’s office, and he was, no sooner than an hour after he’d sent the letter.

He sat, glaring back at Jack, a hand propped up with his elbow resting on his thigh, supporting his head under his chin, and his other hand tapped an odd rhythm on Jack’s desk.

Both men stared at each other in silence, the clock on Jack’s desk wedged between two picture frames ticking away like a little time bomb. It was only a matter of time when it went off…or who went off…

Jack looked at his silver MacBook, then back at Nigel, his eyes skating between the two, until he finally decided to stay on Nigel, and he shook his head, arms still tightly folded over his chest.

“You better come up with a damn good answer as to why you felt you could send this.” He was referring to the letter, of course.

Nigel didn’t need to hide or make up a bullshit answer he’d pull out of his ass; he was far too troubled for that shit. He wouldn’t straight out bear the truth, but he’d be somewhat sincere…somewhat…

He tilted his head above his propped hand’s fist resting beneath it, eyes rolling up at Jack nonchalantly.

“I was in need of advice.”

“That much was obvious,” Jack interrupted, “I still don’t understand the reasoning behind this, Nigel.”

Nigel shrugged, “I don’t have anyone in here who can help me, Jack.”

Jack shook his head, not buying that answer one bit.

“You know you can talk to your counselor.”

Nigel shook his head next, “It’s not the same.”

“It’s not?”

Nigel finally moved back, his shoulder blades kissing the chair first, then the rest of his back and bones. He wished he had worn a warmer shirt, as Jack’s office had the air conditioning on, which made him not only have a headache, but made his entire body ache as he tried hiding how cold he was.

His eyes flicked down to his red polo shirt, and he sighed.

“I don’t need a counselor.”

“What you wrote about was absolutely inappropriate, and I’ve warned you about it!” Jack’s tone of voice raised ever so slightly, as he withdrew a hand and pointed an accusatory index finger at Nigel’s chest.

Nigel rolled his eyes, “Oh come on, Jack! Do you really think those morons are fucking helping anyone?”

Jack cocked an eyebrow at him, still not impressed or amused by the situation.

"Majority of my colleagues are well regarded in the psychiatric community, and are highly recommended by their clients! I think this is a premature, unfair assessment, Nigel." Jack announced, looking down at his large, thick fingers and shaking his head.

Nigel continued as if he hadn't heard Jack, gesturing with his hands back and forth, “They sit me down on a couch and listen to me bitch about my problems while they get paid from an insurance company some neat sum of what? Fuckin’ $300 an hour? I don’t need that shit! I need someone who’ll really listen to me, and I felt that this kid would!”

Jack slammed a hand on his desk, and it was meant to frighten and intimidate Nigel, but it only managed to annoy him further, and he showed it by snarling at Jack, ending his rant.

“I told you; you’re not to write about anything personal! This is a personal letter, Nigel!” He pointed at the screen, as if Nigel were blind or incompetent to notice otherwise.

Nigel rubbed his forehead, his hand catching some hair between his fingers and yanking the strands down painfully, adding on to his growing headache.

“Look, Jack; I’m not endangering the kid, I just needed to talk.”

“Oh you need to talk, alright!” Jack said, eyes widening sarcastically as he nodded.

“Which is why I’m going to refer you now to your psychiatrist; Dr. Frederick Chilton, and he can take it from here.”

Nigel sat up angrily, ready to smash his hands into Jack’s face and rearrange everything.

“Fuck that, I’m not going to fucking talk to him.”

He stood up, making his way to the other side of his chair, when Jack also stood up.

“Sit down, Nigel.”

Jack’s tone of voice was what made Nigel sat back down. Normally, he’d tell anyone who ordered him around to go fuck themselves, but he knew from day one, that Jack Crawford wasn’t a pleasant man to fuck with when he was pissed. He demanded seriousness, and he was going to go through hell and back to make sure he got it, one way or another. Nigel didn’t want to fuck with that or play around with that, so he sat down, feeling his blood racing to his face and ears. He begged himself to remain calm and collected while Jack sat down once he had.

“You have to understand how this reads.”

“I know, I read it and wrote it myself.” Nigel hissed, looking over at the MacBook and shaking his head.

“I don’t even want to think of a future without this person, because I know it’s not possible at all. I love this person so much, but I fear they don’t understand just how much they mean to me, and just how much I love them.” Jack read through, reciting Nigel's words, eyes running over the contents of the letter and his voice reminding Nigel out loud of what kind of a mess he’d started for himself.

Nigel leaned back in his chair, reaching in his pocket for his cigarette carton.

“Look, I wrote it myself, I know what it fucking says.” He pulled out of his right, light grey cargo pants pocket, his cigarette. He brought it up and held it between his teeth, searching for his lighter, when Jack snapped his fingers at him, as if he were a dog about to piss or shit on the floor.

“You can’t smoke in here, Nigel.” Jack rudely barked at him, pointing at the cigarette, raising both his eyebrows, and then nodding over at his pockets again.

Nigel snorted, but spat out the cigarette into the palm of his hand, then tucked it back in with the rest of his cigarettes in the carton.

“And besides, I thought you were quitting smoking?” Jack dug the knife in deeper, but he always had to, didn’t he?

“Fuck you.”

Jack shrugged, “So what’ll it be, Nigel? Will you talk to your psychiatrist, or shall I call up the judge?”

Nigel bit into his tongue, his cheeks, and the insides of his lips, as he curled them back against his teeth. He wanted to kick, tear things apart, set the office on fire, and carve out Jack’s heart, but he knew he couldn’t do any of those things. He knew he was backed into a corner, once again, and no doubt, Jack felt like a fucking King for doing it to him. Fuck him.

“What am I supposed to even say to him? I don’t wanna go to a fuckin’ shrink, Jack.”

“This’ll be the perfect opportunity for you to get whatever’s in your system out of your system to a certified medical professional.” Jack answered, looking back at the letter, which made Nigel’s cheeks flare up with anger again. How many fucking times was this fuck going to remind him of the shit he’d done?

“All this because I wanted a little bit of fucking advice…” Nigel laughed a dry, sarcastic laugh.

Jack paused, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Nigel wondered if he’d heard him, and was about to repeat himself, when Jack turned his head and looked at the letter, then back at Nigel, then at the letter again.

Nigel felt his nerves on edge, and he wished he could leave so he could attack his cigarette…just one…he didn’t like the way Jack kept humming while looking back and forth between the letter and himself, but he knew he had no other choice but to remain silent until Jack spoke.

Jack hummed to himself one final time, before he drew his chair closer to the desk, and leaned over the desk, trying to almost peer into whatever bit of a soul Nigel had.

“I’ll tell you what…” he began, then sat back, hands folding together, fingers entertained with each other as he intertwined them, and he looked down at Nigel, head raised and chin pointed upwards as if he were a fucking God among men.

“…If you go to just one meeting with your psychiatrist, I’ll agree to send out this letter to the student, but it’ll only be a onetime thing. I won’t call up the judge, this won’t go into your report, and I’ll consider it a freebee considering how you didn’t go further than simply asking for guidance and advice.”

Nigel’s jaw dropped, and he sat up in his chair like a flower during the first spring shower, ready and full of life, but Jack raised a hand to stop him before he could speak up.

“This is a one-time offer, it expires the minute I walk out of here, do you understand, Nigel?”

Nigel nodded eagerly, “I got it, I’ll do this stupid thing, just please try to help me, Jack…” He pleaded and put on his best “innocent” smile possible. Half of it wasn’t a lie; Nigel really had no one else to talk to, and he felt that even if he brought his trouble to Darko, the man wouldn’t understand. Of course he wouldn’t! He didn’t even know Adam’s true age…it was all pointless to explain to him, so Nigel had no other choice but to ask someone close to Adam’s own age for real answers. He only wished it didn’t come with a price, but then again, what in this fucking world was for fucking free?

Jack sighed, gathering his belongings, signaling the end of the meeting, and he began powering off his MacBook.

“Believe me, everyone’s trying to help you, Nigel.” He gathered his MacBook in its case, and closed his briefcase.

Nigel watched him for a moment, silent and lost in his thoughts for what seemed like a few minutes.

Jack finished packing, and then nodded over to the door as he tucked in his chair and looked back at Nigel over his shoulder.

“Better get going, then; your appointment is in an hour.”

Nigel couldn’t have agreed more.

………………………………….

Dr. Frederick Chilton was a man Nigel could definitely see himself slaughtering ten times over, and it still wouldn’t be enough to satiate his burning need to rid the world of the asshole of a man.

The moment Nigel met him, he knew he didn’t like the nosey psychiatrist. The man was of average height; shorter than Nigel, though not too thin or plump, he had dark brown hair which was kept short and clean, not a single white or greying hair present on his scalp, he wore glasses, which Nigel thought looked absolutely fucking stupid, and he had a long nose, with nosey-puckish light brown eyes. He tried wearing a thick, dark brown beard that would make him (hopefully) seem manlier and macho-like, but Nigel thought he was nothing more than a child trapped in the body of an adult, who was also wearing a man’s suit. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nigel hated him, and he was sure the doctor hated him.

He invited Nigel in his office slowly, taking all his time to study Nigel’s walk, manner of breathing, his gait, his stature, his mannerisms, his everyfuckingthing.

It wouldn't all be so bad, if only the entire office didn't stink like the inside of a fucking hospital, and a surgery room. Everything had a touch of the scent of sanitizer, and though it smelled clean and untouched, it also faintly smelled like disinfectant, which made Nigel want to throw the fuck up. He hated the smell of vinegar and bleach whenever his mother had used it to clean out his clothes, or to wash the windows and floors, and he hated it even now. He held back his tossing and churning bowels, trying to keep his composure strong and together. He didn't want to allow the doctor a chance to sense a weakness he could exploit, for he knew majority of therapists and psychiatrists only looked to do the very same thing to all their patients; take one little problem or issue that was likely more than natural, and exaggerate the fuck out of it, making it seem like a life-threatening problem.  

Nigel felt himself slowly losing patience when he walked and sat down on the cushiony auburn chairs before the rectangular, thick dark brown desk. A large, sturdy bookshelf littered and decorated with hundreds of textbooks, manuals, encyclopedias, psychiatric studies, journals, articles, and much more lined up the entire wall behind Dr. Chilton’s desk. Nigel wondered if they were there simply for the purposes of decoration, or were there to make Dr. Chilton seem and feel he were smarter than he actually really was.

He concluded to himself that it was the latter, as opposed to the former, and he smiled to himself deviously, though he wasn’t clever enough to wipe the smile away as Dr. Chilton sat down on his dark chair across the desk from Nigel.

Dr. Chilton smirked back at Nigel, though he didn’t seem put-off or perturbed by the man’s inner musings.

“Something amusing?” He asked gently, and his voice had a hint of a jeering, mocking tone, and for Nigel, it sealed the final nail in the coffin; he really fucking despised this man.

Nigel shook his head, his smile dying off on his lips immediately.

“No, just…just remembering I had a good day, that’s all.” He spoke quickly, and he knew he was fucked for doing that, for it seemed to thrill the psychiatrist.

Dr. Chilton smiled widely, and he leaned his chair back against the bookshelf, the back of the chair bending the spine of a book inwards slightly from the pressure. Dr. Chilton folded his hands in his lap, and he crossed a leg over the other.

“What defines a ‘good day’ to you?”

_Are you fucking kidding me…_

Psychiatrists. How typical. He should have known some type of bullshit like this would come up, but he was still unable to answer the question.

Dr. Chilton, almost eerily reading his thoughts, interrupted with his own answers; “Oh I know, too many answers, right?”

“If you knew, why did you ask?” Nigel growled under his breath, crossing his legs also.

“Curiosity. A deep-rooted desire to know about what makes my fellow man tick, what his pet peeves are, and what his source of happiness and comfort is.” Dr. Chilton pulled out a pen, though he made no move to write down notes, like Jack did.

Nigel watched with a disgusted expression on his face, as the psychiatrist dug the pen in his mouth past his lips, and bit down on the end of it, smiling childishly at Nigel. He was clearly amused by his discomfort and disgust, and they both were aware of it. This was all a game to the psychiatrist, nothing more, nothing less.

“If you wanna know what makes me tick, it’s people who engage in mind fucking.” Nigel hissed, looking at the pen between the white, sharp teeth.

“Oh?” Dr. Chilton paused his pen-biting, then continued. Nigel swore he was doing this all to amuse himself.

“Yes. There are many things in this world I’ll test, but I’d never fuck with someone’s mind, doc.” Nigel sat back, pulling out his cigarette carton once again, almost naturally, and this stopped the doctor in the middle of his playful game.

“You’re not allowed to smoke in my office.”

Nigel slammed his hand down on the desk, the cigarette carton smooshing flatly like a piece of paper.

“DON’T FUCKING TELL ME THAT!” He roared angrily, then sat back, pushing his hair out of his eyes and shaking in anger.

Realizing he’d acted immaturely, Nigel lowered his head, looking at his grey cargo pants, and wishing he could be with Adam more than anything else right now. Only Adam would be able to soothe and comfort him; not this fucking quack of an insane doctor! Nigel began wondering if this man even really was a real psychiatrist, when he heard a faint snicker.

“Such anger. Anger’s good, Nigel…it can constantly motivate us to fight for the right to live…much like dying.”

“Are you threatenin-”

“Death serves as a permanent reminder, and a promise of what’s to come if we so readily choose to, so we desire certain things and expect certain things out of a fear of death. Anything we do really, is motivated by death, and anger.” He finished, gaze weighing down heavily on Nigel, as if his eyes were trying to pierce through the back of his skull.

Dr. Chilton pushed himself back, his chair moving to the side, and he stood up and made his way around his desk, and stood to the side, his thighs and hip leaning against the left side of the desk.

“Tell me, Nigel; have you ever done what is known as the Rorschach test?” His tone was a bit higher pitched whenever he asked a question, and it hurt Nigel’s ears. He wished he could shut the man up, so he felt that the only way it was possible, was to just play the game. Maybe if he played the game well, and pretended to go along with everything, he’d get the fuck out of there sooner.

He shrugged, “I don’t think so, but it sounds interesting, I guess.”

Dr. Chilton smiled, and took this opportunity to heart, walking towards his window at the far-right side of the room, talking as if he were giving the world’s most intriguing, important lecture.

“It’s also and universally known as the ‘ink blot’ test, which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or perhaps a mix of both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning...” he stopped at his window, looking out of it momentarily, before turning and looking down at Nigel, a playful grin plastered on his face. “…The test is named after its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach.”

“Hmm.” Nigel pretended to be captivated, and he nodded, eyes widening with great effort.

Dr. Chilton walked back to the desk, opening a drawer, and pulling out a large black folder. He opened the folder, and peeked at the contents, the back of the folder hiding everything from Nigel’s view.

Dr. Chilton’s mischievous eyes flew up and peeked almost mockingly at Nigel over the folder, then lowered themselves as he looked at whatever was in the folder. He hummed, making his decisions internally, and he pulled out a few loose sheets, the back of them blank, but a large black pattern visible through the back on the front side.

He leaned over the desk in front of Nigel, their bodies a few feet apart, as Nigel moved his chair back, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was on the paper the doctor held in his hands.

“I’m going to reveal one of the ink blots on the pages I am holding, and you’re going to tell me for this specific one, if you see a face. The face can remind you of someone in your life, someone you’ve never seen before, or it can even be the face of an animal. The point is, you tell me what you see.”

He flipped over one sheet, and Nigel looked at a large, dark spot in the center of the page, and it resembled a snowflake, more than anything. The object had wings, in a sense, for it stretched out to the right and the left, and a few lines running up and down in the center molded together. All in all, it seemed like someone had spilled a large ink bottle on the page, more than anything else.

“I don’t see shit.” Nigel hissed, growing tired of this bullshit game already. He gripped the arm rest of the chair tightly, and looked away from the page.

Dr. Chilton’s eyes didn’t leave Nigel’s face, and he didn’t move the page, either.

“Look at it again, and tell me if you see a face.”

Nigel rolled his eyes, but didn’t want to get into more shit and lectures, so he turned his head back up towards the page. He tilted his head to the right, then the left, and squinted.

“Okay, I can kinda see someone, I guess…I don’t fucking know.” He concluded, throwing his hands up in the air slightly.

Dr. Chilton set the page face-down onto his desk, then revealed the next in line.

“What about this one? Do you see something pleasant in this one? Like the waves of an ocean, the rays of the sun, or do you see something sexual within the contents of the image?”

Nigel couldn’t believe it. The shape was simple enough, to his mind, anyway. All it was, was a few flowery-shapes stacked on top of each other, with more wing-like features parting to the left, right, with some spike-like-stick-like-ends reaching down to the bottom of the page.

“Are you going to use this shit to tell me that my dad fondled my balls a few times too many when I was growing up and I just repressed it in my mind all these fucking years as some kind of stupid fucking coping mechanism?” He spat at the doctor, who only beamed in amusement as he lowered the page.

Nigel leaned forward, both hands gripping tightly onto the armrests of the chair for support.

“Or are you going to tell me that I have some sort of sick ball-gag fetish, with the need to be spanked five times by someone I want as my daddy, while running around in a fucking circle saying a Hail Mary?”

Dr. Chilton threw his head back and snorted through his nose, putting away the rest of the papers on the desk behind him.

“I must say, I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Nigel.”

He folded his hands in his lap, watching Nigel rise to his feet, straighten out his shirt by pulling on the hem of it, cheeks set ablaze while his eyes darted to the door for his escape route.

Nigel had decided he’d had enough, and their time was already drawing to an end. He just didn’t want to stick around longer and have the doctor call him a pedophile or anything worse, so what a better way to end the torment than leave?

Dr. Chilton followed him, gesturing with a hand to the closed door.

“I think we’re going to grow quite fond of our time together, don’t you think?”

He opened the door, watching Nigel practically run out of his office, disappearing into the long hallway. He only stopped staring when Nigel appeared like a little, beady black dot at the end of the hallway, then was swallowed by the darkness as he opened a door and turned to the left.


	10. Needing and Wanting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, sorry for the pause between updates! I was super sick the entire week, but I managed to write a few pages at a time!  
> Enjoy!

**_Chapter 9_ **

Darko had always told him: 'If you want something done properly, do it yourself.' That meant no pussy-footing around the topic, just head into with your guts like a real man. Sure, it could bring trouble for everyone around and involved in the situation, but hey, Nigel had an issue he needed resolved, and he was going to damn well see to it that it would get resolved.

Nigel texted Adam’s cell number for the third time that morning. It was barely half past nine, but he wasn’t going to let the morning slip away. He wasn’t sure what Adam did on weekends, but he wanted to be able to have the opportunity to learn more about his darling, and most of all: he really needed, and wanted to see Adam.

The morning was already chilly and gloomy; grey clouds lingering in the sky after an early morning rainfall had died down to a light drizzle, more leaves were littering the grounds and the grass, most people were either indoors or rushing to get indoors, leaving the streets vacant and empty, and it was clear enough that another storm was on its way.

Storms in the early summer weren’t unusual, but this change in weather was certainly the most bizarre one Nigel had ever experienced. If anything, it mirrored his changing and rapidly paced emotions for Adam, he thought.

He got up from his bed, showered, and even managed to do some of his laundry before he checked his phone.

No response from Adam, still. All that sat bare on his screen was his own far-reaching, lonely-ass text message which probably looked super desperate to anyone else’s eyes.

**_Adam…what’s wrong? pls talk 2 me, gorgeous_ **

Nigel felt that the text, by itself, wouldn’t get the point across, so he decided to be more brazen and solve the issue, and he texted out what he really wanted to:

**_I need 2 c u._ **

Yes, that sounded a little needy and whiny, but Adam hadn’t reached out to him once the entire weekend or Friday, and that deeply disturbed Nigel. He had wanted the relationship to be reciprocal; not one-sided. He didn’t want to repeat Gabi’s situation all over again. He was absolutely willing to go out on many limbs for Adam, even if it meant climbing the tallest tower or mountain, but he needed to know that the reward of Adam’s love and attention would be waiting for him at the end of the day. That wasn’t asking for much at all!

Nigel bit down roughly on his lower lip while he ironed a few of his shirts on top of the old ironing board, his eyes on his phone as it sat on his dresser beside him. His hair was still slightly wet and dripping water from his shower, and the drops landed on his shirt, which he ignored for the time being while he kept on ironing away.

He soon went through his entire laundry and stacked them neatly on top of the dresser, picking up his phone and realizing he had a text from Adam!

Nigel felt like he could throw a party and celebrate. He had never felt this much joy from reading anyone else’s messages, even if they were talking about money or a job.

Nigel stood beside the edge of the bed, as he unlocked his phone, only to pause, as a heavy frown crossed his features.

Why would Adam send him this?

While he was trying to rack his brains for an answer and a meaning to the coded message, he tripped over something on the floor, and he landed right on top of the neatly stacked pile of clothes, sending them in different directions as he cursed loudly.

All the hard work he had done...for nothing...

Nigel growled and kicked the clothes aside, momentarily forgetting them while he sat down on the bed, holding his phone in front of him.

**_Sunday, Central Park, Festival of Seasons-12 noon_ **

………………….

Beth was up before Adam on Saturday morning, and she was already in his kitchen chatting with his mother when Adam woke up due to their voices, and walked in the kitchen, hair messy and eyes puffy and slightly red.

He felt shy and embarrassed when he saw Beth, and he wished she would have given him a warning of when she would come over. Adam was still dressed in his blue shorts, and he wore a black night-shirt with a little yellow bear on the front (a gift his grandmother had gotten him last Christmas). He felt so ridiculous in comparison to how nicely Beth and his mother were dressed; both of them wearing stylish deep blue jeans, with Beth wearing a tight-but-fashionable-red spaghetti-strapped shirt, and his mother wearing a clean orange blouse.

Normally, on Saturdays Beth would show up and they would work on their homework or projects together, and then later either would go outside and play, or play inside the apartment. Beth lived upstairs, so it wasn’t too shocking for her to already be there in Adam’s flat, but Adam wasn’t too excited to see her that morning.

He hadn’t been able to sleep all night, his mind wandering and nearly causing him to have a mental breakdown from the prospect of not being able to see Nigel. In the middle of it all, Nigel had been texting and trying to reach out and connect with him, but Adam had to turn off his phone and ignore Nigel’s numerous texts and calls, despite the fact that he didn’t want to at all. His parents were already sensitive to his staying out late that night, especially his mother. She hadn’t really said much to his father, but Adam was certain his father was angry and disappointed in him too, for he looked sad and tired most of the following days, and he barely managed to sit around and talk at the dinner table often as he used to. His mother said that he had a lot of work lately, which made Adam feel he had to be extra careful around his father now.

Adam kept to himself most of the following days until Saturday morning. He walked in the kitchen, still half-asleep, rubbing his head and pushing his messy hair back away from his eyes, and avoided Beth’s welcoming smile.

“Adam, don’t be rude! Say good morning to Beth!” Adam’s mother, busy at the fridge, turned around and glared at her son before turning back to re-arrange and clean the fridge.

“Good morning to Beth.” Adam imitated angrily. He hadn’t meant to be so snarky and smug in the morning, but he wasn’t feeling too well from the lack of sleep, and he also wanted to talk to Nigel and ask him to stop calling and texting, but he wasn’t able to. Adam felt tightly trapped in the middle of all these difficulties, and he hadn’t meant to take it out on his friend and mother. He immediately bit down on his tongue and cast his eyes down on the table when his mother stood up and closed the fridge door tightly in a manner that definitely symbolized she wasn’t pleased with his antics.

She placed her hands on her hips and looked down at the top of his head.

“Adam,” she started sternly, but her voice still remained calm, “…that was absolutely uncalled for and unnecessary.”

“I’m sorry mom, I’m sorry Beth.” He quickly apologized, taking a quick peek up at Beth, who looked a bit sad. She was staring awkwardly at the walls of the kitchen, as if she wasn’t sure what to say or do next.

“That’s more like it.” Adam’s mother turned back and began wiping the top of the fridge with a paper towel.

So she was in cleaning mode. Wonderful.

Beth tapped Adam’s elbow gently to get his attention.

“Hey, I thought I would drop by so we could finish off the English homework and then maybe go tomorrow to the Season Festival!” She beamed at him proudly, pulling up her books and a pen and resting it on the kitchen table, looking all prepared and ready to go.

Adam looked at her and then at his mother’s back.

“What festival?”

“It’s a new festival, it’s kind of like a multi-festival-multi-cultural event, and a lot of people are getting together there in Central Park and there’ll be dancing, music, arts and crafts, and the ways people celebrating different seasons! It’ll be really cool!” Beth exclaimed excitedly, hands resting on top of her books as she eagerly gazed at Adam, waiting for his confirmation to attend.

“In Central Park?” Adam asked, even though he had heard Beth properly the first time around. He was just mentally organizing and arranging a plan that would benefit everyone; including his boyfriend Nigel…

Beth nodded, helping herself to a soft brown pear that sat perched in the large brown round bowl in the center of the kitchen table.

“Yeah! I’m totally going, and so is Kelly!” She answered with a slightly muffled tone as she chewed through her pear.

Adam’s mother suddenly turned around and threw away the dirty paper towel into the trash can, but she smiled warmly at Beth.

“How is Kelly by the way?” She asked, wiping her hands clean on a rag that sat on the counter.

Adam felt his blood growing cold. He knew his mother well enough to know that she was going to ask about the imaginary-made-up History project…

Beth wiped her wet-pear-stained lips with the back of her right hand.

“Oh she’s good!”

Adam suddenly stood up quickly, grabbing Beth’s arm tightly in his hands and he tugged her upwards beside him.

“Adam! I am eating!” Beth cried angrily, trying to sit back down, but Adam’s tightly yanked her forward away from the kitchen table.

“I wanna go to the festival, but if we want to go, we have to finish our homework, and I can’t focus here in the kitchen if you’re going to be talking to my mom all day!” He cringed internally at how bossy and naggy he sounded, but he didn’t want to get himself and Nigel in trouble…no way!

Adam’s mother nodded and smiled a light smile. “Hmm, Adam’s right, Beth. Better get started on that homework so you’re ready for Sunday.”

With that said, she turned around and began cleaning the stove.

Adam thanked the gods for his timing and acting skills as he pulled Beth towards his room, and he closed and locked the door once she was inside, and he sat beside her on his bed, rocking slightly and panting in fear.

This was the first part he had gotten through, but how was he going to arrange to see Nigel there at the festival without being caught? Sure there would be a lot of people and activities going on as a distraction, but Adam was positive either Kelly or Beth would see him talking to Nigel, and they would definitely tell his parents! This idea had started out great, but now was more troublesome than Adam had originally thought.

Adam was racking up more of his ideas and thoughts about what he could do for Nigel, when he felt Beth’s pencil sliding its way through a curly hair strand. The eraser on the end felt cold and heavy against his temple, and he gasped away in shock, glaring at the eraser instead of Beth.

“You’re seriously driving me crazy with how often you get lost in your daydreams.” Beth sighed as she dropped her pencil into her notebook and slammed it shut.

Adam looked at her closed notebook and frowned, “We’re supposed to be doing our homework, Beth…”

She shook her head defiantly. “Not until you tell me what’s going on and why you’re acting so damn weird.”

Adam felt even more trapped that day, and while he gave his friend the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t know of his situation and feelings for Nigel, he knew that she wasn’t giving him enough room to think and breathe, which he needed more than anything right now.

Beth raised an eyebrow at his silence.

“Do you have feelings for me, Adam?”

Adam could have laughed right then, even though he didn’t find her question funny. If Beth had asked him the very same question a few weeks ago, he would have answered ‘Yes’. Adam really did like Beth, but he liked her more as a friend and almost like a sister, now. He felt more attached and more passionate about Nigel, and he knew that his feelings for Nigel ran deeper than they had for Beth. Beth had been an innocent, harmless crush, at the most, but Nigel…that was something else, and something Adam didn’t want to face and discuss now, especially with his best friend.

He choked back on a dry laugh, but shook his head.

“No Beth, I don’t have feelings for you.” He felt his cheeks turning red, which could have appeared he was lying, but he wasn’t. He only hoped Beth would understand that…

Beth laughed and gently shoved Adam.

“You’re such a liar, Adam! Look at your face! You’re totally crushing on me!” She giggled louder, and Adam began panicking, not wanting his mother to knock at the door and demand to come in.

He frowned at Beth darkly, which caused her laughter to die down a little.

“No, I don’t have a crush on you, Beth. Why would I like you?”

Adam felt he really had messed up, now. The look of pain and hurt that had crossed his best friend’s face was absolutely horrendous. Beth’s eyebrows lowered and her eyes widened a bit at first, but then she lowered her eyelids slightly and looked down at the bed and her notebook, her hands resting in her lap almost lifelessly. Her breathing came out gently through her nose in the quiet room, and she sniffled once and then remained motionless for minutes.

Adam swallowed heavily, and gently placed a hand on her knee.

“Beth, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that, I know I upset you because I can see it in your body language, I am sorry…” His words came out in a blur and a hurry, but he meant his apology sincerely, and Beth seemed to understand, for she looked up at him with slightly red, watery eyes, but she wrapped her arms around him in a small, friendly hug.

Adam couldn’t believe his luck. He really had been blessed with the kindest and most understanding friend in the world. If it had been anyone else, they would have definitely yelled at him, but Beth was so supportive and kind…Adam wished he could take those words back…he wished he could fall in love with Beth the way he was falling in love with Nigel, but he knew that it would never be the same. Adam knew Beth was different than Nigel, and while he would care for her, he would want more from Nigel than Beth, and there was no way around it anymore. He just wanted to keep both people in his life, and perhaps introduce his best friend to his boyfriend someday…perhaps…

Adam withdrew from the hug, and looked at Beth nervously. She didn’t seem hurt anymore, but she sniffled still and wiped her nose with the back of her hand quickly.

“It’s okay Adam, I know we’re friends, I guess.” She looked awkwardly at her hands.

Adam nodded reassuringly.

She pointed a finger up at him then, “But sometimes, you really have to watch your words, Mr. Raki! You can come off as mean!” She chuckled and grabbed her notebook, clutching it closer to her chest.

“I apologize, Beth. I just really didn’t want to upset or hurt you.” Adam scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. He really hoped Beth wasn’t going to be mad at him and hold this against him.

She laughed again, and then rolled over to rest on her stomach flatly, raising the notebook up on a pillow and propping it in front of her, ready to begin.

Adam followed suit, pulling out his own notebook and grabbing a pen from his bag resting on the floor beside the bed, but then stopped his movements when he turned to look at Beth.

She gazed up at him with a hyper mature, serious expression on her face that normally his father would wear whenever he was talking seriously with Adam. That look usually meant a super severe, grim, or stern topic was going on, and it always caught Adam’s 100% undivided attention.

Adam sat up straight at the very sight of that expression on his friend’s face, and he swallowed thickly, feeling his throat tighten and turning dry.

“What is it?” He asked softly, wondering if she really was still upset with him.

Beth’s lips were set tightly in a thin line, but she spoke very calmly and gently as she kept her eyes set on Adam’s, even though he avoided her gaze.

“Adam, if there is anything going on that you don’t feel comfortable telling your parents, you can always talk to me, okay?”

Adam held his arms over his chest and shrugged, wishing he could shrug off his feelings for Nigel and this entire conversation right now.

Beth raised her head up, trying to catch even a brief second of Adam’s eyes, just to make sure he heard her loud and clear.

“Adam, I mean it. If someone is doing something you don’t really like, you can tell me. I am here to listen, always.” She looked at him for a long time, listening to him awkwardly and uncomfortably shift around on top of the bed.

Adam wished she would take her eyes off him, so he quickly nodded, hoping if he gave her the answer she wanted, she would drop the issue.

“Okay, Beth, I will…thanks…”

She slowly smiled, and then looked down at her notebook.

“Where shall we start?”

Adam coughed and cleared his throat.

“Umm, the essay, I guess.”

“Sounds good.”

Why had she asked him that question? What had she meant by that? Was she expecting something to happen to him that he needed to come and talk to her? What was going on? Why would she ever ask such a thing?

Adam brushed aside the burning questions, and instead bit down hard on his pen’s cap, watching Beth write down their first paragraph.

………………….

“Ibanescu, Ibanescu! I have already spelled it out for you!” Nigel stood on the other side of the counter on the main floor of the apartment building, wondering just how inept the fucking receptionist was. He hadn’t checked his mail in the last week, as he had been too busy with trying to get Adam to talk to him, but now that he had the chance and the energy, he had walked down towards the reception desk, but with his luck, a new guy had been working that day, and he was really fucking dumb. Nigel had been around dumb people before, but this kid was definitely a special brand of fucking dumb. He probably didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, Nigel wagered, as he watched the kid with the pimply freckled face who looked no older than eighteen stumble and fumble around the desk, papers scattering and flying about.

“Yeah, sorry sir, I will try to find your mail, just please hang on a sec!” The kid flipped through some papers, and then grabbed the pile he had gone through and placed it on the counter right beneath Nigel’s nose.

Nigel scoffed at the level of unprofessionalism.

“Fucking really, kid?”

The young man stopped in his fumbling and peered back up at Nigel, sweat forming on his cheeks.

“Sorry?” He asked shyly.

Nigel nodded at the papers in front of him.

“Leaving everyone’s confidential information right out in the open like that? How did you land this fucking job?” Nigel hissed, already fed up with this day, and he backed away before shoving the papers back down in front of the receptionist.

The neat pile was immediately ruined, and the papers scattered and flew down below at his feet.

“Hey!” The young man cried angrily and tried picking them back up, but Nigel slammed his hands against the plastic barrier hoisted between him and the receptionist.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit, kid. I live here, and I have fucking ID, so fucking find my fucking mail, before I call your fucking manager!”

The young kid frowned at him and abandoned the scattered papers for a moment, then resumed his search through the tiny mailboxes behind him on the wall.

“You can’t curse here, sir, else I’ll ask security to escort you from the building.” He said in a small, meek voice, not bothering to look at Nigel as he looked through the mailboxes.

Nigel chuckled.

“I’ve received threats that were far more meaningful and sincere from grannies, kid. Nice try.”

“I mean it!”

Nigel leaned against the plastic barrier, his breath fogging the barrier up.

“Go ahead. Try it.”

Nigel’s cold, threatening voice that held promise made the kid shiver, but he didn’t dare repeat his statement or turn around. He sorted through the mail faster, instead.

“Wise choice.” Nigel backed away from the desk, and he nearly gasped when he felt his phone vibrating.

He had asked Adam more about the festival, when Darko had called him and asked him to check his mail, which had led to the sea of fucked up, inept bullshit that had gone down afterwards. Darko said it wasn’t a serious issue, but Nigel knew he was toning it down…a lot. His mood had soured as Adam’s responses were delayed, but every text still cheered him up, even if it was slightly.

The current text read:

**_I’m allowed to go, I finished my homework._ **

Making sure the receptionist was still searching for his mail, Nigel lowered his eyes and responded:

**_good, but a park, baby? that’s gonna be an issue…_ **

Nigel looked up away from the phone when he heard a loud clatter on the floor on the other side of the desk.

The receptionist gasped, and looked down at the obviously broken item at his feet.

Nigel rolled his eyes.

“Good job, kid. I hope the money that will be needed to replace that shit isn’t going to be over your pay.”

The young man ignored Nigel and continued searching, and Nigel felt the need to annoy and prod him more with barbed comments for the hell of it, when his phone vibrated again.

**_Call me._ **

Done deal.

“I have to make a call, if you find my shit, wait for me.”

The kid didn’t bother responding.

Nigel backed away from the desk and located a stairwell near the exits of the building, and making sure no one was around, he dialed Adam all-too-eagerly.

Adam seemed just as eager, and he picked up after the first ring, halfway through the second ring.

“Nigel.”

Nigel gasped when he heard that young voice breathing his name.

“I could listen to your voice all day, gorgeous. Please say my name like that again, just once more for me…”

Adam didn’t say anything for a minute, and Nigel leaned against a white bricked wall, pressing his phone roughly against his ear, and it slightly hurt, but he wanted to hear Adam whisper his name out like that again.

Adam was still quiet.

“Adam, I won’t let you hang up until you do it. Please…” Nigel didn’t mind begging over and over for his darling, and he felt he kind of enjoyed it, actually.

“Nigel…” Adam whispered almost seductively, Nigel thought.

Nigel felt his body heatedly responding to Adam’s voice, and a manner of lewd thoughts ran through his mind, but he knew he didn’t have the time, and wasn’t in the right place for that type of a conversation. Damn.

Knowing there were more important matters to deal with and attend to, Nigel dug into his pockets for a badly-needed cigarette.

“So why a park, gorgeous? You want me to get arrested or what?” He searched his pockets until he found his lighter.

Adam sighed, “No, it was the only way. We can’t see each other at night anymore…”

Nigel paused before he lit the cigarette.

“Why not?” He felt his heart about to shatter once again. What if Adam didn’t want to see him anymore? What had happened? He shouldn’t have touched him that night in the car! Fuck!

Nigel threw down the cigarette, crushing it before even lighting it. He stomped on it with his boots until he felt slightly relaxed. He cursed himself up and down internally, wishing he hadn’t been so careless and reckless with Adam.

“It’s my parents.”

Nigel froze.

Fuck.

They had found out, hadn’t they?

He could almost see and hear the police cars outside in the distance now, driving towards him, ready to throw him in jail all over again. Nigel couldn’t do that. He couldn’t die a second time…

“You told them.” He answered for Adam, closing his eyes and not breathing for a long time until his lungs ached. He didn’t care if they exploded. He was fucked now. Better to die right here than in the hole.

“No! I would never do that to you, Nigel!”

…

Nigel couldn’t believe it. Adam hadn’t told his parents! So he hadn’t been too rough or fucked up! It was all okay! Adam was okay with it all!

“I’d never tell anyone about this, I just have to be careful because my mom said I am not allowed to go to anyone’s house for ‘projects’ anymore, but I have other ways we can see each other, Nigel! Don’t worry!” Adam stated reassuringly and happily, and Nigel felt his heart doing gymnastics.

He was so in love with this boy. He would die for this boy. He wanted to start a new life with Adam. Adam was absolutely his forever.

Nigel fished out another cigarette and this time lit it, inhaling and sighing happily to the skies. His day was absolutely fucking beautifully perfect now, and it was all because of Adam.

“So your little friends will be there, huh? They’ll see me.” Nigel sighed, though he felt he didn’t care, as long as Adam was his and wanted to be with him. The whole world could see him with Adam, and it wouldn’t bother him at all. He was proud to be Adam’s, and he would tattoo it on his forehead if it came to it.

Adam sighed again, but it didn’t seem a sad sigh.

“Well I think I can sneak away from them when the activities and dancing starts. Don’t worry, Nigel. I am sorry this has to be in a public place, but I don’t know what else to do…” Adam’s voice was quiet again, and Nigel focused on his breathing for a few moments. Even Adam’s breath caused him such great pleasure…this was serene…

Nigel flicked his cigarette and then looked at it, frowning before opening the door of the stairwell and throwing it outside. He didn’t feel the need to smoke and rely on that shit to be calm when he had Adam. With Adam by his side, he could quit smoking and drinking, and that thought partly worried Nigel, but also made him feel…brand new. Almost…reborn…

“It’s okay, gorgeous. I think I can steal you away for a while and then have you back before anyone notices.”

Adam gasped slightly.

“We have to be quick Nigel! I have to be home by ten!”

Nigel chuckled, “Don’t get agitated, darling, I’ll have you home by then.”

“Promise?” Adam asked, and Nigel could almost picture him sweating from panic.

“Hey, if you’re gettin’ all hot and bothered, why not take off your clothes, gorgeous? I don’t want you suffering through a heat wave.”

Adam almost growled in annoyance and frustration.

“Just promise me, Nigel!”

Nigel held up a hand as if he were under oath.

“I swear I will, gorgeous.”

Adam breathed out in relief.

“Okay.”

“Mhm.”

Nigel looked around at the parking lot behind the closed door and a devilish grin crossed his face.

“So why not take your clothes off for a minute?”

“Bye Nigel.”

The call ended, and the steady beeping of the disconnected line echoed in his ears, but Nigel threw his head back and laughed a few moments before he heard a small knock on the door behind him.

He pocketed his phone and glared at the receptionist behind him.

“What?” He roared at the kid, who backed away slightly, but then held up some envelopes and pressed them against the glass of the door.

Nigel yanked open the door, causing the kid to move away in fear, eyes lowered and head lowered in a submissive manner.

Nigel looked at him, and then the white envelopes.

“Who are these from?”

The young kid shrugged.

“Fuck it.” Nigel ripped them out of his hand, and tore one open.

A neat, single page faced him, and it was a typed-out letter. Nigel’s eyes flew through the page while he read what his school-pen-pal had written to him the first day they were assigned this stupid letter bullshit.

_Hello Mr.,_

_I’m a fifteen year old student, and I don’t write many letters. Last year, I was the head of Writing Club, and I even won a few awards for some things I wrote. I mainly write poems, short stories, and sometimes I try to write historical retellings of World War 1 and 2, but we just started learning more about WW2 in history class, so I am waiting for more information to write on._

_What do you enjoy writing about?_

_I’ll tell you about some things I am interested in._

_I love reading and writing about space. The most recent book on space I have read is called 'Asteroid Hunters' by Carrie Nugent._

_I am not done reading everything about it, but I think you would like it. If you go to the library, you should be able to find a copy, and maybe we can read it together._

_I’d love to hear your thoughts about it, and maybe after, we can read something you like and something you would enjoy._

_That is how I want a friendship to be; you and I learn new things about what the other likes, and it will be really fun in the end. Kind of like a brother I never had._

_I am a single child, by the way. I don’t have any siblings, although if I did, I’d really have liked to have an older brother because I sometimes get picked on at school, but I have a friend named Beth who really always sticks up for me and doesn’t let me be bullied._

_I really like her._

_I want us to really get along too, so I am going to wait for your letter and response._

_Thank you for reading, and I look forward to your response._

_I hope you can get a copy of the book!_

_Best,_

_Student_

Nigel noticed that a large, thick, black marker had been smeared all over a particular word after ‘best’. It possibly had been the name of the student, or anything else that revealed personal information. It was clear that the letters were checked thoroughly before being sent out, but now Nigel’s curiosity was aflame.

He would send the letter over to Darko, and Darko’s guys would be able to find out the name of the kid really quickly.

It was the least he could do to satiate his curiosity until he could see Adam again.


	11. Author Check-In

Hello you sweeties!

I am sorry I haven't updated in a century (or what feels like!) I have been back to school, and absolutely bombarded/inundated with a multitude of tasks, projects, tests/quizzes.  
  


I will be posting a relatively shorter chapter by tomorrow night latest, so do keep your eyes peeled for it, but after that, it may take me a while to post anything else!!

I am also thinking of discontinuing "May The Best Man Win" because I kind of feel it isn't going anywhere, but if you guys want it or like it, I MAY consider keeping on!  
  
Thank you so much to those who stuck with me through all my Spacedog fanfics, you guys have been nothing short of beautiful, wonderful, and supportive!!  
  
Please keep updated, "To Be Well" is going to be updated again shortly! ^_^  
  
Happy Autumn! 


	12. You're Pretty When You're Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All spelling errors are intentional for the texting, and yes, things get pervy -_-

**Chapter 11**

****

Adam clung to his cellphone, clutching it so tightly it practically meshed into the heat of the palms of his hands. It nearly slipped through his fingers a few times, as he could barely contain his sweating, flushing face, beating heart, and quick breaths. Adam looked out the car window as he sat in the backseat next to Beth, his father and mother in the front, speaking out directions as they pulled up to the front entrance of the parking lot of Central Park.

Adam watched as children with freshly painted faces ran around with balloons, cotton candy, and some others pulled on the hands of their parents eagerly as they ran for food, ice cream, and other festivities.

Clowns and dancers gathered on the thick, luscious green grass, a few of them juggling bright red and yellow balls, while the dancers waved around artistically, their movements mesmerizing and tantalizing.

Adam would have loved to pay closer attention to the artistic displays and activities, but he was waiting for Nigel to text him when he arrived at the Park. They had to be very careful and discreet; otherwise their entire relationship would be ruined and lost forever. Adam had barely managed to get even five hours of sleep that previous night, as he had been up worrying over Nigel. He didn’t want Nigel to get into trouble, and he had a pretty good idea of what would happen to him if they were caught. Jail sounded very frightening, so Adam had made sure to turn off the volume of his phone, and he tried collecting and composing himself as calm, even though he was anything but calm.

Beth shook his shoulder excitedly as she squealed and smiled widely, pointing out past his nose at a few hip hop dancers who began back flipping as they were cheered on by a small crowd who observed them.

“I want to get out already! I’m so excited!” Beth cried in zeal as she turned to the right and peered out her window at a few balloons as they were released into the bright blue sky and clouds above.

Adam’s mother chuckled softly as she fixed her make-up in the small pocket mirror she held in her hands.

“We will as soon as we’re able to find a parking spot, Beth.”

Adam’s father sighed as his foot hovered over the brake, his eyes fastened on the large crowds weaving to the side as the car made its way past them, pausing every once in a while when someone else was shifting over to take a parking slot.

“This is useless, we should just let them get down here, safely, and we can get them after.”

Adam’s father spoke over to his wife, who snapped her mirror lid shut and looked back at Beth and Adam.

Adam stirred for the first time since they’d entered the car that afternoon.

“What? You’re not coming with us?” He asked, barely able to keep the relief out of his voice.

Adam’s mother sighed and shook her head.

“Looks like we can’t, kiddo. You and Beth go enjoy, this is more your type of thing anyway!”

Adam’s father smiled at his wife, then over at Adam, before his head snapped back to look out the window ahead.

“Yeah! We’ll be fine, Adam, we’ve got some errands to run anyway.”

Beth clapped her hands happily, and grabbed onto Adam’s elbow once the car stopped moving. Adam’s father unlocked the doors for them, and Beth yanked Adam over to her side of the door in a hurry.

“Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Raki! You guys are amazing!” Beth beamed with delight, and she was the first one to bolt from the car, making her way over to the dancers in the middle of the crowd around them, her long dark brown hair flowing behind her like a curtain.

Adam stopped halfway out the car, and he was unable to meet his mother or father’s gaze as they both smiled warmly at him.

“Text us when you’re wanting to come home, okay?” Adam’s mother leaned forward and kissed her son’s forehead softly.

Adam looked down at his small black sneakers and smiled, giving his mother half a nod before he stepped out of the car, closing the door softly behind him.

He felt his heart beating in excitement, but he tried calming his nerves down as he made his way close to where Beth was watching the dancing. He wanted very much for his parents to enjoy the events with them, but he had been very worried when they’d said they would be joining them that morning. Adam didn’t think he could meet up with Nigel if they were all around, and he had texted Nigel immediately calling their date off.

But now, he was more than ecstatic that he would be able to sneak off with Nigel for a bit after all.

Adam’s phone vibrated the moment he pressed in between two large women around the dancers, who were competing for fun as they each performed freestyle dancing, each move earning a loud hoot and clapping from the audience.

He checked it hurriedly; making sure Beth wasn’t looking at him as he read the text.  
  
_Just Now **  
can i still see u gorgeous? please tell me, im going crazy**_   **:(**

Adam texted back:

**_yes we’re still on for today, parents aren’t coming with us! Just got the park now_ **

“Adam!”

Adam hit “send” and quickly shoved his phone back in his jean pockets, just in time before Beth stood in front of him, her cheeks slightly pink.

She eyed him suspiciously, her eyebrows caught up in a furrowed frown.

“What?” Adam asked blankly, scratching behind his ear as he looked at the feet of the dancers ahead of them.

“Um, Kelly said she’d be meeting us soon, do you wanna get something to drink first while we wait?” Beth looked a bit upset from Adam’s curt, short response, but Adam knew there was no way he could explain his situation to his best friend, no matter how much he wanted to.

Adam sighed, wishing he didn’t have to play the part of the cold jerk, but he had no other choice until he could talk to Nigel about their relationship. It was all too soon too suddenly.

His phone vibrated again before he could respond to Beth, and this caused her to frown darkly at him.

“Adam, who do you keep texting?” She asked softly as she took a step closer to him, nodding over to his pocket which held the phone.

Adam protectively held a hand over his pocket and took a step back.

Beth gasped and then laughed in awe.

“Oh my…I’m not going to check your damn phone, Adam! Who do you think I am?”

She gaped at him, shaking her head back and forth a few times in disbelief.

“Just leave it alone, Beth.” Adam looked around nervously, eyeing an abandoned park picnic table close to the ice cream and hot dog stands.

“Tell Kelly we’re sitting at the benches and picnic tables near the ice cream and hot dogs. I’m gonna sit down now.” Adam turned and began making his way for the bench, and Beth followed silently, each step she took a bit pained, a worried expression painted on her young face.

She bit her lower lip as they sat across from each other, but Adam turned to his side and sat on the edge of the seat, facing the crowds ahead of them a few feet away.

People ran around splashing each other in the water park a good distance away, the loud sprays and splashing of the fountains and the sprinklers making Adam wish he had brought an extra pair of shorts. The hot sun rays were hitting his neck and back, and he desired a few runs through the sprinklers more than anything…if the rest of the people in the park were gone.

Adam saw Beth texting furiously out of his peripheral vision, but he didn’t really have the energy or the desire to ask her what was wrong now; he had to figure a way to answer Nigel quickly before she could grow more annoyed and frustrated.

Adam leaned back a bit, stretching his legs out before him as he slowly pulled his phone out of his pocket, and he swiped it on to quickly text Nigel.

_3:09PM  
**i’m so happy, get to see you today….can’t wait to taste your lips again, darling xo**_

He looked up once at Beth before he responded:

**_Me too, i miss kissing you, Nigel…_ **

He looked back up, his brown eyebrows flickering upwards as he watched Beth rest a hand under chin as she texted away on her phone. He felt badly for how he had snapped at her, but he wished there was a way he could trust her enough to tell her everything…something about keeping the best part of his life a secret from his best friend made him feel very shameful and horrid, but it was the only way he could be with Nigel until things changed…

Adam looked back down at the next response:

_Just Now  
**I miss every fucking thing about you, gorgeous. that sweet smile, the way you blush when you get uptight, the way you sigh when you think no one’s listening, those sexy soft moans…the mere fucking thought of you makes me so fucking hard, Adam xo**_

Adam felt so dirty sitting across his best friend while he was reading and texting intimate messages to his boyfriend. He lowered he cellphone so it rested on his hip as he texted his reply.

**_Nigel, don’t say that right now…people are around me!_ **

He swallowed, wishing he had stopped for a drink as Beth had suggested. He rested his hand over his phone and looked up to see Beth’s head slightly bobbing to the music ahead in the distance, her mood difficult for Adam to read.

Minutes went by when Nigel texted back again:

 _Just Now_  
**i find that so fuckin’ hot, gorgeous. the idea that you’re as hard as i am in public.  
i’ll be there soon to take care of you, gorgeous**

Adam gasped, and was about to respond when he felt two warm hands grab the back of his neck, followed by a hot breath by his ear.

“BOO!”

Adam turned around, nearly dropping his phone into the grass as Kelly leapt to his side, laughing and screaming in amusement.

Beth stood up, crying happily as the two wrapped their arms around each other and hugged each other in welcome.

Adam took this momentary distraction to shove his phone back in his pocket, but not before he texted:

**_gotta go, friends are here_ **

It wasn’t long before Kelly entrapped Adam in a tight warm hug of her own, which he barely returned with a single hand around her shoulders.

“Hey Kelly.”

“Sorry about that, I just thought it’d be kinda funny to do that!” She giggled and blew her bubble gum, popping it loudly in front of Adam before she took a seat next to him.

“So what’re we gonna do first?” She asked as she tugged on the loop of her long earrings which dangled and flashed in the bright afternoon sun.

Beth sighed and threw Adam a hurt look.

“Don’t know, he’s too busy texting his girlfriend to care.”

Kelly gasped, turning to Adam on the seat.

“You have a girlfriend?” Her wide eyes seemed to peer deeply into his conscience, and after everything that he had to keep from his parents, Beth, and now Kelly as well, Adam began feeling sick and queasy in the stomach.

Would it be too much to ask for some time alone with the person he cared for? It seemed like he had to go through a lot of pain and trouble just to merely see Nigel, and it was starting to trouble him.

Adam gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing before he responded slightly less than confident, “I don’t have a girlfriend, Kelly.”

“But you like someone!” Beth snapped instead, causing Kelly and Adam to both look at her in shock.

“I swear, I thought you two were gonna date for like, the longest time!” Kelly announced, gently tapping the top of the table with her bright pink nail polished nails.

Adam shook his head, “Beth and I are close friends, but that’s it.”

Beth rolled her eyes while Kelly looked at her to confirm that answer.

“In short: I got friend zoned.”

Kelly cocked a confused eyebrow that matched her confused facial expression.

“I thought that normally happened to dudes…”

Beth shrugged, “Then I’d be the first girl it’s happened to, because it happened anyway.”

A few teenagers on bikes and rollerblades skated towards the designated skating and biking areas, laughing and screaming happily, which caused the small trio to look at them before turning to each other in silence.

“Let’s not talk about friend zoning; I came here to have a fucking blast, because my dad’s breathing down my neck again about the car stuff.” Kelly stood up, reaching for Beth’s small hands.

Beth sighed, taking her hands in Kelly’s, “He’s still going on about that?”

Kelly nodded, “Yep. And I don’t wanna talk about; I wanna enjoy the time we have here before I have to face his nagging and bitching again.”

Beth stood beside Kelly, their hands held tightly in each other’s, and they looked down at Adam. At the same time, his phone vibrated again loudly.

Both girls sighed, tapping their legs and rocking back and forth slowly and dully, waiting for his answer.

Adam looked at the crowds as they moved from activity to activity, buying and eating snacks and foods, and the water park over-flowing with both water and people while the sun burned brighter and harder down at them all.

He looked up at his friends, momentarily ignoring the other cares and worries haunting him.

“Let’s go.”

………………………………….

**_6:48 PM_ **

It had surprisingly started growing dark before Adam could get a hold of the time. He had enjoyed lunch with his friends, and everything had turned back to normal after a brief silent period for about an hour. It had been tough to talk to Beth at first, and she seemed to only want to be around Kelly and talk to her, but soon, she was her usual, happy self, and she was dancing around Adam, rolling around in the grass after getting her face painted with Kelly’s face, and they had enjoyed hot dogs and burgers together under the shade of a large tree.

The trio had listened to a traveling rock band, and after the first two songs, Adam said he had gotten a headache, so they walked back to the shade beneath the tree, where they talked among a group of older couples and teenagers with dogs.

Beth had played with a few puppies, while Kelly bought them all frozen yogurt, and they had taken a small nap beneath the tree before waking up to a group of musicians singing and playing the guitar in small circles a few feet away.

Some small bonfires were going on near the seating areas of the park, and the sprinklers had died down to a small stream, with the occasional dog or adult dipping their toes in it before running back into the setting sun and trees.

Adam felt his nose and eyes burn as the smoke and ash flew about in the air as he sat with Kelly and Beth close to a small bonfire. A small family who were eating pizza slices was responsible for the smell, but Adam found he was growing accustomed to it, and didn’t mind as Beth and Kelly chatted softly beside him.

They were sitting under their favourite tree once more, a small breeze blowing through the leaves and branches above them, making Adam feel cool and collected as he closed his eyes and lost himself in the peace and calm of the evening.

Kelly sat to his left, and Beth sat beside her, with the roots and the grass of the tree digging into their calves and shoe-less feet as they relaxed and lost themselves to nature for the longest time possible.

Adam felt the cold blades of the grass tickling and sliding between his toes, and he smiled and sighed as he closed his eyes and thought of Nigel…

NIGEL!

Adam bolted upwards, his back scraping against the bark of the tree. He fished out his cellphone, reading the last text Nigel had sent him a few hours ago.

_3:19PM  
**What friends? Ur at the park now?**_

_4:24PM  
**should i come get you now?**_

_4:39PM  
**i’m startin to worry…**_

_5:02PM  
**i’m leaving my house now**_

Kelly and Beth were still chatting, so Adam texted back his response:

**_Nigel I’m so sorry, I was so caught up in the park activities, I wasn’t ignoring you!_ **

Adam carefully hid the light and glow his phone gave off in the setting sun, and he looked to the side to find his friends eagerly chatting and wrapped up in their own conversation, so he kept an eye out for Nigel’s response, which came sooner than he expected.

_Just Now  
**i see…havin’ fun without me, sexy?**_

Adam shook his head as he texted what he felt:

**_its not like that! Beth was upset, and i didn’t want her asking questions!_ **

Was Nigel going to be mad at him now? Adam’s mind began swimming with worry and doubt as he conjured up a hundred set of scenarios, all of which entailed Nigel being so upset and mad at him that he suggested they break up and stop seeing each other.  Adam didn’t want that to happen ever, at all, and he began sweating and feeling nervous to his stomach as he waited for Nigel to respond back.

_Just Now  
**i see…**_

Adam didn’t think Nigel was mad at him before, but now he was certain he was. Nigel never texted such small, short answers! What had gone wrong?

He began panicking, and he looked at his friends quickly, watching Beth yawn before she laughed and leaned her head against Kelly’s shoulder.

**_Nigel, please don’t be mad at me, i still wanna see you today…_ **

Adam sat up straighter, hearing a few dogs yipping and barking as their owners played fetch and tossed Frisbees for them to catch as they leapt up in the air and latched onto the circular disks with expertise and precision.

His buzzing phone brought him back to reality.

_Just Now  
**i see…**_

Adam was unable to contain his anger that time. He sat, cross legged, and texted furiously, his fingers making numerous errors in his spelling, but that was the least of his concern now. Nigel was acting weird, and he didn’t like it at all.

**_why do yoou keep sayg i see?_ **

The response this time was lightning quick.

_Just Now  
**because i’m staring at you right now.**_

Adam froze. He re-read that message at least five times before looking up. He noted it had gotten a bit darker, but everything else remained the same; Beth and Kelly were singing a song as they shared headphones and Kelly’s Ipod, families lazed about on their blankets and towels, music played, fires burned…where was Nigel? How could he see them? Could he see them now? Right this instant?

Adam scanned the park for any sign of Nigel, but when he couldn’t, he turned to his phone and texted quickly:

**_Nigel, dont say weird things! i can com soon, my friends are nt gona notice._ **

A long pause and awkward, tense silence went by, and Adam kept staring down at his phone expectant, until he caught Nigel’s next words.

_Just Now  
**you seem to really care more about what your friends may say or think…i think i’d really like to meet em, show em i’m a good guy for you.**_

“What?” Adam’s outspoken words caught Kelly’s ear, and she turned to look at Adam, her shiny eyes gazing at him from beneath her blonde bangs.

“What’s going on Adam?” She asked, and Beth yawned, looking over at Adam, though their music still played on.

Adam waved them off; giving a small, pained smile, hoping it would ease their curiosity off for the moment.

**_you cant meet my friends yet, Nigel! just telll me where u want me to meet u!_ **

This time, no answer came, and Adam sat, staring at his phone for exactly ten minutes. His phone kept turning the screen lights off for battery power, but Adam kept the phone on and he waited and waited, but no response came.

He was about to text Nigel again, when a strong stench of tobacco hit his nose from above.

“Mind if I sit by you guys? Couldn’t find any other room available.”

The three friends all looked up simultaneously.

A pair of black booted feet stood directly in front of Adam, and long, skinny legs supported a tall, well-built, attractive man with dirty blonde hair, which was pushed back by a pair of dark sunglasses which rested at the top of his head. He wore a white T-shirt, and a pair of deep blue torn jeans. On the left side of his neck was a beautiful pin-up girl tattoo…

_Nigel…_

Adam’s heart began racing a million beats per second, and he dropped his phone onto his lap, but his friends didn’t notice his state of frozen shock; they were too busy gawking and gazing up at Nigel as he sat down between Adam and Kelly.

He pulled from the back of his right ear an unlit cigarette, and he lit it, smiling over at Beth and Kelly.

His smiled seemed to charm the girls, for they exchanged looks, blushed, and giggled.

“Hey…” Beth said nervously, chuckling and eyeing Nigel up and down.

The shirt he wore was quite tight, and it revealed lean muscles, which both Kelly and Beth in their adolescence appreciated enormously.

Nigel blew aside the smoke from his cigarette, and he smiled even wider at the two girls.

“I’m Brad.”

At the sound of the lie, Adam glared at Nigel, and mouthed slowly to him when he caught his eye:

_What’re you doing?!?_

Nigel quickly winked at Adam, and then turned fully to face Kelly and Beth. He rested his back against the tree, stretching his long legs before himself flatly on the grass.

Beth brushed her hair behind her ears, blushing furiously as she looked at Nigel as if he had hung the stars.

“I’m Elizabeth, and she is Kelly!” Beth introduced Kelly, who smiled proudly at Nigel.

Nigel nodded, “Two good looking girls.”

At this received compliment, both girls giggled, and scooted their bodies even closer to Nigel, each girl pushing the other slightly out of the way.

“Do you guys hang out here often?”

Kelly was the first to answer.

“No, not really, we’re all just trying to take a few hours away from our parents!”

Nigel snorted, “You’re all really young, aren’t you?”

“We’re in high school!” Beth answered quickly and eagerly, as if she wanted to impress Nigel.

Nigel smirked at her playfully, “Ahh, you seem too mature for that.”

Beth blushed, while Kelly interjected, “I’m the mature one!”

“You both are.”

Nigel took a drag from his cigarette, and then peered down at Adam, who sat staring in awe, his mouth wide open and eyes trained on Nigel the entire time. He looked pained and lost.

“And you?”

“That’s Adam!” Beth answered when Adam had taken too long to respond.

Adam nodded and glared at Nigel. He already knew his name! What was this game?!?

“You all go to the same high school?” Nigel asked, taking another drag and then leaning his head back against the tree trunk.

Beth and Kelly nodded, “Yes.”

Nigel suddenly looked over at Adam, and the darkest, vicious, and possessive expression crossed his features.

“Are you her boyfriend?” He gestured with his head over to Beth, but his eyes bore darkly into Adam’s.

Adam was unable to break the eye contact, even though he found Nigel absolutely scary and intimidating at that point. Nigel had never given him such a look, and he found he didn’t like it, and didn’t want it at all.

“She’s not my g-girlfriend!” Adam whispered, and he was afraid of his own voice, even more so than Nigel’s glare.

Nigel seemed to buy it for a moment, and then Beth stepped in to support the answer.

“Yeah, we’re all just friends. Plus, Adam’s in love with someone else, though he won’t say who!”

Adam suddenly turned his fear into anger, and leaned forward to snarl at Beth.

“Shut up!”

Nigel threw his head back and laughed.

“In love? What’re you? Twelve?”

“I’m fifteen!” Adam screamed, and it caused a few dogs to yip, and a few people seated close by to look at them in shock.

Nigel held up his hands.

“Alright, alright, don’t need to get mad at me! Hope it goes well with your lover.”

Adam was about to respond, when Kelly’s phone rang.

“Oh damn it!” She hurried to answer it, and in the silence, Nigel closed his eyes, head leaning against the tree trunk.

Adam didn’t understand why Nigel was doing this whole thing; lying, and then pretending he knew nothing about them! What was going on?

“Hello? Yeah dad, I’m still at the park!”

Adam wondered if this was some form of punishment for not meeting up with Nigel earlier or not responding to his texts earlier. He didn’t deserve this, no matter what he had done to upset Nigel!

“Oh for fuck’s…yeah, alright. Hey, can Beth come over for a sleepover?”

Adam started getting lost in his train of thought, when he felt a warm grip on his thigh.

In the darkening sunlight, he was able to peer down and he saw Nigel’s large, strong hand clasping onto his left thigh. The veins in Nigel’s hand were visible, giving a more manly appeal to his overall appearance. The warmth from Nigel’s hand seeped into Adam’s thigh, and it made the entire left hand side of his body soon grow numb from the warmth of the contact…Nigel’s grip began tightening, and Adam looked down to watch Nigel’s hand slowly move up close to his hip…

“Bye dad, see you in five.”

Kelly hung up the phone, and she turned to Beth.

“My dad’s coming to get us, you’re sleeping over!”

Beth smirked and looked over at “Brad”, who had let go of Adam’s thigh, and had his arms folded across his muscular chest.

“Wish we could bring him with us!”

Kelly gasped, “Oh my god, you’re a dirty whore, Beth!”

Both girls laughed loudly, and Nigel winked at them both.

“Call me in another five years, girls.”

At this, they both cheered and blushed furiously, while Adam sat beside Nigel, hunching over, and stewing in anger. He didn’t need Nigel rubbing it in his face; everyone knew Nigel was good looking and attractive. He didn’t need Nigel to flirt and joke with his two female friends who clearly liked Nigel and found him attractive! This was absolutely unfair and embarrassing!

A loud honk soon broke Adam out of his thoughts and anger.

“Oh, gotta go! It was nice meeting you, Brad. Hope we can catch you around later?” Beth looked down and bit her lower lip, smiling down at Nigel as she stood with Kelly next to her, who was eyeing Nigel up and down for a long time, as if wanting to memorize his form forever.

Nigel smirked and held out his hand, which Beth shook first, then Kelly.

“Hope so. Have a good night, girls.”

They giggled happily before hugging Adam, who didn’t budge.

“Goodnight Adam! See you at school!”

Adam barely stirred when they called out to him, and before long, they were gone, leaving Adam and Nigel alone, side-by-side.

Adam didn’t meet Nigel’s eyes, but he knew Nigel was looking at him.

“We need to talk.” Adam said dully and coldly, like it was a matter-of-fact, no room for dispute.

He felt Nigel lean in next to his left ear, and he soon whispered softly to him.

“My car, now. We’re going to my home.”

………………………………….

**8:13PM**

They reached Nigel’s immaculate apartment quickly. They had driven in silence, and Adam had been going over the entire evening in his mind until he had concluded that Nigel indeed had been punishing him for not responding to his texts. There had been no other logical way to explain Nigel’s behaviour any other way, but Adam felt he didn’t deserve any of that treatment. He cared for Nigel so much, and Nigel didn’t seem to know or understand this at all, when all he had to do was talk to Adam.

Adam didn’t know how to start talking, not even when Nigel held open the car door for him, and they walked up to Nigel’s floor.

Still wrapped in his thoughts, Adam barely had time to register the door unlocking, before Nigel pulled him in the apartment, pushing the door closed with his leg, lips descending on Adam’s in a second.

Adam closed his eyes to the familiar feeling of Nigel’s lips on his own; those lips which seemed to be perfect for his own, for they felt so wonderfully natural against his…then he suddenly remembered how Nigel had behaved, and he broke their kiss, shoving Nigel roughly square in the chest.

“Get off me, ‘Brad’!” He snapped angrily, wiping Nigel’s scent off his lips with the back of his hand.

Nigel sighed, running a hand through his hair and shoving off the sunglasses, not caring as they fell down onto the floor.

“I’m sorry, gorgeous. You always are hanging out with your friends, Monday to Friday, and I just had to see what was so fucking special about them that you’d ignore me for the entire fucking day!”

Adam sat himself down on a sofa, looking angrily out the apartment windows at the night sky.

“I’m not picking them over you, Nigel! I have to go to school! I have a life outside of you!”

Nigel began pacing, “I never said you couldn’t have one!”

“Then why did you act that way in front of my friends?” Adam finally looked over at Nigel, but he looked at his arms and chest instead of meeting his eyes. This bothered Nigel, and he wanted Adam to look at him and warm his body and heart as he often did whenever they met each other’s eyes, but Nigel knew his lover was angry, and he didn’t want to aggravate him further.

“I-I, I didn’t do anything, Adam.” Nigel sighed dejectedly, eyes closing as he breathed out exhaustedly.

Adam’s face turned red.

“You were flirting with them!”

Nigel ran over and sat down beside Adam, reaching for his hands, which Adam folded in his own lap.

“I had to put on a play, gorgeous! I didn’t want them catching on!”

Adam turned away from Nigel angrily and closed off to him.

Nigel lowered his head defeated, and slightly broken. He knew he had fucked up. He didn’t have to take it the route he did, but he had, and Adam was absolutely right. He had fucked up once, but he was certain he wouldn’t do it ever again.

“Adam, you’re right.”

Adam looked over at Nigel, though he still didn’t meet his hurt eyes.

“I was wrong to talk to your friends, but you don’t know how it is, gorgeous,” he began, grabbing Adam’s hands in his own, and this time Adam didn’t reject the move.

“…I don’t get to see you all week long, and every day, I’m going crazy thinking about you and worrying about you! Whenever I get to see you, I go so over-the-moon with passion, that I just don’t know how to behave. I got a little jealous, that’s all, but I won’t ever again, I promise.”

Adam thought about Nigel’s answer for a while, and he felt that Nigel was being sincere, so he held tightly to his hands and looked up into his eyes. The moment he did, Nigel leaned forward and kisses his forehead, then leaned their foreheads together, touching.

“Promise?” Adam asked softly.

“Promise.”

Adam smiled a small smile, “I forgive you, Nigel.”

“I love you, Adam.”

Adam retracted and pulled away a bit, blushing and frowning, though not angry.

“Don’t say that, Nigel.”

“I do.”

“Shhh!”

Suddenly, Nigel grabbed Adam’s shoulders, and with a free hand, he unzipped Adam’s jean zipper, though he did not touch Adam or slide his hands under Adam’s jeans.

“Nigel?” What’re you-”

“I want you to touch yourself for me, gorgeous.”

Adam looked at Nigel, who wore a serious expression on his face. His lips were set on a thin line on his face, his eyes were half-lidded, and he was breathing softly, his breath hitting Adam’s cheeks and nose.

“What?”

“Please, Adam. Touch yourself.”

Adam cried out and blushed, feeling slightly scared.

“Nigel that is…that is private! I am going to be so embarrassed!” Adam hung his head low, and he closed his eyes in shame. Why would Nigel ask him to do this?

Nigel kissed the side of his cheek.

“I won’t look, I promise. Just do whatever makes you feel good, gorgeous. I want you to feel good when you’re with me.”

His deep voice soothed Adam, and he looked over to see Nigel’s eyes closed tightly.

Adam looked down at his open zipper, and then over at Nigel curiously.

“Don’t look, please.”

“I won’t, gorgeous.”

Adam took a deep breath before he shifted into his seat, trying to seek out a comfortable position. Nigel’s warm, strong hand was still draped over his shoulder, but this comforted and eased him, and he snuck his right hand into his pants, and then beneath the boxers.

Taking a peek over at Nigel, who still had his eyes closed, Adam felt his confidence gathering, and he sought out his own warm flesh. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was to touch himself like he sometimes did at night when his parents were fast asleep.

Adam felt his small fingers grab the base of his cock. The friction helped so much, and was suddenly so needed. It felt so good. He began stroking himself a few times, a small experiment, before a small moan escaped his lips.

Adam immediately bit down on his tongue, and looked over at Nigel.

True to his word, Nigel’s eyes were still closed, but he was breathing heavier, and his nostrils were slightly flaring.

“I can feel your body changing when you touch yourself, you know.” Nigel suddenly spoke, once Adam resumed his slow, sensual pace.

“Your body throbbing and shaking while you begin to sweat.”

Nigel’s words hit his ears like the waves of the ocean over rocks, and Adam threw his head back against Nigel’s hands, sighing softly as he gripped himself tightly with his thumb and index and middle finger. He ran his fingers down his shaft, an inexperienced grace to the movements, and he moaned against Nigel’s ear loudly.

“You want to cum. It is all you want. To feel your stomach tighten before it loosens, leaving you riding beautiful waves of sexual pleasure.”

“Nigel…”

Adam wanted to have Nigel talk to him some more, so he moved his fingers over himself faster, the tip of his nose resting against Nigel’s neck, breathing in Nigel’s scent as his mind imagined it was Nigel who was touching him this way and bringing him this level of pleasure.

Adam looked down and watched his cock grow harder as his thumb and fingers squeezed harder and moved faster, and he gripped the tip of his cock with his forefinger and thumb, and then eased them underneath the head of his cock. The head was turning red with impatience, and he turned to look at Nigel’s perfectly shaped face as he let himself go.

Adam moved his thumb and index finger to form a tight ring at the base of his cock, and he was about to stroke his fingers along his cock, when Nigel’s eyes snapped open and a large, strong hand gripped Adam’s hand over his cock.

Adam’s movements were stopped in that second. Adam gasped, and then whined, when he felt an intense burning sensation begin at the base of his cock, and shoot up through his stomach, to his back, and to his chest.

Nigel felt Adam fighting his grip, but he didn’t allow him to finish. He held tightly onto Adam’s arm, and Adam began whining as tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

“Nigel?” Adam wheezed as he felt his heart beating in wildly in confusion, and his legs began quivering.

“That, my love, is called chastity and control.”

“What?”

Nigel pulled Adam’s hand out of his pants, and he carefully zipped the boy back up.

“From now on, you will only touch yourself when I give you permission, is that understood?”

Adam thought Nigel had to have been joking, so he smiled and tried leaning in to kiss Nigel’s lips, but Nigel pulled back, a dark and serious expression on his face.

“Tell me you understand me, darling.”

Adam shivered, and then sat up, holding his hands together in his lap. The apartment felt so cold, suddenly…

“Nigel this is not a nice punishment, and I already apologized, please don’t do this…”

“This is called discipline, gorgeous, but I will only continue if you allow me to.”

Nigel ran his hand through Adam’s dark brown thick hair, looking at him deeply, and then his hand ran down to cup his chin, and he raised Adam’s face so their eyes could meet.

“Adam.”

Adam gave a small smile.

“Okay, I will only touch myself when you tell me to, Nigel.”

Nigel smiled proudly.

“And you will only cum if I say you can.”

“As long as it is with you, then yes, Nigel.”

Nigel kissed Adam’s lips chastely, and then began stroking his hair.

“You’re mine, Adam. You will always belong to me, because you were made for only me, please say it, gorgeous.”

Adam closed his eyes, enjoying the caressing and the stroking, but then opened his eyes once the movements ceased.

He looked at a sad, yet focused Nigel, and he kissed his lips, trying to tell him it was okay, and that he didn’t mind this weird type of relationship, so long as they were together.

“I don’t really understand this, but I think it is a form of sexual game play, like some kind of roleplay, right?”

Nigel grabbed both of Adam’s cheeks in his hands, and their faces were soon inches apart.

“This is not a fucking game to me, Adam. I love you with all my heart and soul, and I am ready to commit to you absolutely if you want me to, and it you let me. Please just say you are mine, Adam, please…I need to hear it…”

Nigel’s last words died down, and Adam felt himself growing tired. It was probably getting late, now, and he wanted to go to sleep.

He smiled at Nigel, feeling the warmth his hands provided lulling him to an early sleep.

“I am yours, Nigel.”  
  
Nigel gasped, but continued, wanting to be sure.  
  
"And you'll have no one else except me in your life? No other lover?" He knew he was demanding far too much from the young boy, but he couldn't have a third chance after this. This WAS Nigel's second chance, and he found he couldn't and wouldn't fuck this up, ever.

“Always?”

Adam yawned, barely able to keep his eyes open.

He looked once more at Nigel, who had a serious expression Adam was unable to read past.

“Always and forever, Nigel.”

Adam felt Nigel’s hands pulling his head close to his chest, and Adam’s cheeks soon met with Nigel’s warm chest. He could hear Nigel’s heartbeat, and he relaxed, closing his eyes and falling into a deep slumber, forgetting everything that he had said and done for the time being.

“Always and forever, Adam.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet Taylor Swift is going to make a damn song about these two.


	13. Close To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Nipple play!

**_Chapter 12_ **

****

Nigel had gently gathered his sleeping, worn-out darling in his arms, and placed him in his car, driving him all the way back to the park. Along the way, his mind and heart screamed at him and told him to stop, to turn the car around and bring Adam back home with him to spend the night, but he knew he just couldn’t…yet. It wasn’t the time to piss off Adam or his parents, and Nigel wanted to make the best impression he could…without even meeting them…for now.

He texted Adam’s mother from Adam’s phone, watching the parking lot as they sat parked in his car, Adam snoring softly beside him in the passenger’s seat.

 _Just Now_  
**I’m less than a few minutes away, please be ready, Adam  
love mom **

Again, the familiar, old feeling of pangs of jealousy resonated thorough Nigel’s body as he read the text over twice. He couldn’t ever remember his mom giving him rides anywhere, much less saying she loved him. If he ever was late or came home sometimes three days later than he said he would have, she would wallop him over the head with a book or whatever she held in her hands at the moment, and that was it. Nigel’s father was absent most of the time, and when he was home, he hardly gave a shit when Nigel came home, with whom he arrived home, and what they did. Love wasn’t really talked about in their home, but Nigel was certain his mother loved him; all mothers were supposed to love and care for their children, after all. It was an inescapable natural, biological fact built into someone when they chose to become a mother, especially.

Feeling slightly nauseated and worn out, Nigel gently leaned over Adam, undid his seatbelt and kissed him on the forehead after running his long fingers through his soft, wavy hair.

“Gorgeous, you should wait for your mother now; she won’t like seeing you exiting a strange man’s vehicle, after all.”

Adam stirred, stretched, yawned, and he did this all while Nigel felt his cock growing heavy with irresistible need for the young man. He couldn’t help it; he wanted to take Adam right then and there in the dark, in the empty parking lot, in his car…preferably in the back where they could stretch out, with Adam whining and writhing beneath him from pleasure, while Nigel’s body draped and covered Adam’s, heat blending into heat, thighs intertwined, and Nigel’s thick heavy cock sliding against the creamy white plump of Adam’s ass…

“My mom’s gonna be here soon?”

That was one way to kill a fantasy.

Nigel shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Uh yeah, she said she is a few minutes away, gorgeous, and she said that a few minutes ago.”

Adam looked down at his lap, his smile slowly dying.

“Guess I have to go then…”

Nigel frowned as he looked out the left-hand window.

“Yep.”

He heard and felt Adam shifting beside him, and he had expected him to throw open the car door and to walk away, but instead, he felt Adam’s heat and weight pressing into his right arm.

Before Nigel could fully turn to face Adam, he felt two slightly cold hands wrap themselves around his shoulders, and warm lips captured the corner of his.

Nigel simply stared at Adam before him, admiring his eyebrows up close, the way his hair still managed to smell so fresh and clean of a shampoo scent, and he rested their foreheads against each other’s while Adam’s lips pressed a few times against the right hand corner of his own.

There was something so sweet and pure about the kisses that it nearly made Nigel turn away from them before he could break out into tears. He really loved, envied, respected, admired, cared for, and wanted this young boy. Nigel had no clue why Adam even was bestowing such tender kisses onto him; he was an old, dirty man, nothing more, nothing less. Adam was still too young and full of life! None of it felt right to Nigel, but it was so perfect at the same time, that he was unable to resist leaning in once and gently pressing the tip of his tongue against Adam’s upper lip.

Adam backed away immediately, giggling and wiping his lip.

“Nigel, my mom will be here soon…”

Once again, Nigel felt his thoughts and conscience ganging up on him in a sudden moral and ethical battle. He needed to be alone to deal with them immediately, and he didn’t want to harm or offend Adam.

He grabbed the back of his hair in his right hand, pressed down on the back of Adam’s head until the top of his hair was brushing the tip of Nigel’s nose. Nigel buried his nose in Adam’s thick hair, and he closed his eyes, inhaling his clean, lovely scent, and he pressed a kiss on Adam’s skull before he playfully ruffled his hair and gently pushed him away.

“Alright, get outta here, darling, and text me soon, okay?”

He saw Adam straightening his clothing and his hair, and he opened the car door, standing and facing Nigel, wringing his hands a few times nervously.

“Yeah, I will.”

Nigel leaned forward across the passenger seat, throwing Adam a playful, teasing glance.

“I’m serious, darling; last time you made me wait so fucking long it was actually kinda painful.”

He saw Adam sputtering and stammering for words, a hurt expression crossing his young features.

Nigel snickered and sat back behind the wheel.

“I’m kidding, gorgeous,” he sighed, combing his fingers through his hair exhaustively, “you better get going, I can hear another car approaching.”

Adam backed away from Nigel’s car, closing the passenger door, and he looked up to see the headlights of another car in the distance.

Nigel took another long look at Adam, deep yearning and pain in his eyes, but before Adam could notice, he turned on his car, and drove out of the parking lot quickly.

………………………………….

**12:17 AM**

Nigel had no idea why he had arrived back to his stupid, alone, cold-ass apartment so late, but he barely registered the time before he flopped himself down on his sofa, rubbing his tired, burning eyes.

He missed Adam. He knew he missed him, but he hated thinking about it, and he tried distracting himself by counting the watermarks on his ceiling, then the spider webs he should have cleaned weeks ago. When none of those methods seemed to effectively work, he grabbed his cellphone and called up Darko.

Luckily, the man picked up on the second ring.

“Glad to hear from you again, honey pie, what took you so long?” Darko’s flirty voice mockingly greeted.

Nigel didn’t even snicker.

“I need to talk.”

“That much was obvious when you rang me, you goon.”

Nigel sighed and held the phone with one hand, the other toying with and tugging on a loose thread sticking out from the old sofa. It was beginning to annoy him, so he yanked and gritted his teeth at it. If Dr. Chilton were here now, he’d say some shit about frustration and sexual rejection displacement on inanimate objects, Nigel thought to himself, and he snorted out loud.

Darko snickered in response.

“What’re you doing?”

“None of your fucking business, Darko, I just wanted to ask you something, and you can’t fucking leap to some conclusion, I just need you to listen to me for a fucking second.”

He heard the other man opening a door, possibly the fridge door.

“Alright.”

Nigel wished more than ever that he could truthfully tell Darko just what kind of a relationship he shared with Adam, and just how young Adam really was. Nothing pained him more than being less than honest with his best friend and business partner, but Nigel had lost too many people in his life up until now to be honest and forthcoming. Some people could say that you could never go wrong with honesty, but Nigel felt that was a load of bullshit people spread to comfort each other when they knew a large, impending loss was near if they told the truth and revealed their dirty laundry. Everyone would judge you harshly, even friends, family, and lovers. There was no beating around the bush, especially when one made a huge mistake and wanted to be open and honest about it. There were no rewards granted for truthfulness, so why should he be honest and consider it an option now?

He heard Darko drinking something, and he let out a sickeningly loud, disgusting belch which somehow managed to buzz through Nigel’s ears, making them ring.

Nigel lifted the phone off his ear momentarily, and looked at it in repulse.

“Can you curb your sickening fucking gassy outbursts when I am trying to tell you important shit, you fuckstick?” Nigel hissed angrily, pulling on the loose thread as he lowered the phone back down to his ear.

“You were taking too fucking long! Excuse a man for wanting to have a fucking drink!” He heard Darko hiccup back another burp.

Nigel closed his eyes and counted to three, then angrily yanked out the entire loose thread, trying not to lose his control. It seemed therapy was working for him…somehow…

When the other side of the line was completely silent, Nigel opened his eyes and carried on.

“What would you say or do if you knew someone who was involved in a f-friendship with someone who was…a b-bit younger th-than them?” He couldn’t believe had spat it out, but he had. Nigel couldn’t determine if he felt better about it, seeing as he didn’t flat out name anyone involved, but it was a bit of a contrast to holding onto the dark secret forever, at least.

He heard something crash on the other end of the line, then the line went silent again, then he heard shifting and muffled movements.

Nigel lifted the phone off his ear and instead barked angrily into the speaker.

“What the fuck are you doing over there, Darko?!” He felt his cheeks and forehead growing hot with anger and frustration, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to repeat his question over again; it was humiliating enough the first time.

He heard sharp intakes of breath, finally.

“Sorry about that, I was trying to put on some boxers because my neighbour walked by and I was ass-fucking-naked as the day I was born, Nigel.”

Nigel rolled his eyes and sighed exhaustedly. There was no point, was there?

“Do you have any idea how fucking embarrassing it is to have a seventy-year-old woman take a look at your figs and actually LIKE looking at it?!”

Nigel was about to interrupt, but Darko kept going.

“I could tell she wanted to taste me so fucking badly; her mouth dropped wide open and she just looked at the tip for the longest time, thinking about how it would fit, probably. As long as she gets her fucking dentures out of the way, who knows? It could be possible. I mean, there’s a reason, after all, why some young guys fuck the old ones, Nigel.”

Nigel began yanking more thread out of his sofa, not caring that this wasn’t his property, technically; he just wanted to destroy something.

“Darko, did you hear a word I just fucking said?” He asked as calmly and coolly as he could, feeling his heartbeat in his ears, steaming away.

“…of course I did! Now, there’s nothing wrong with hanging out with the young ones, if you ask me.”

Nigel swung his legs over the sofa and sat up abruptly.

“You really think so?” He asked, feeling a lot better now that Darko had heard him out.

“Fuck yeah! I used to go all the time with Felicia, remember?”

Nigel nodded, even though Darko couldn’t see the movement. “Yeah, it’s not a bad thing as long as you’re honest, right?”

“Right. It’s okay to have some fun in some ways; life’s boring as an old man’s balls anyway.”

Nigel squinted and recoiled a bit.

“Did you seriously have to just bring an old man’s balls to my mental imagery right now?” He growled through clenched teeth.

Darko hummed humorously.

“You’re fucked up, Darko.”

“How’s it going with your Adam, by the way?”

Nigel sighed, letting go of the threads he had made a little nest out of, gathering them in his lap and curling them into little spheres. 

“We both went home for the night, but we had a good day today…I miss him.” He admitted with a heavy heart and sigh.

“Ahhh, such bitter-sweet sorrow is parting of lovers.” Darko snickered.

….

“Fuck off, Darko.”

………………………………….

**Monday, 10:14 AM**

Adam had to be extra cautious and sneaky throughout the morning, as he kept texting Nigel throughout his morning classes. He had to time his texts in between the rest of his class taking notes, and when his teachers had their heads down; backs turned, or were helping other students with their work.

Beth didn’t seem to notice, nor did Kelly, not even when they all had their lunch together.

Beth and Kelly seemed to be wrapped in another conversation about renting their own apartments away from their families, when Adam lowered his eyes and checked his phone on his lap.

 _Just Now  
_ **u shud come over today, darling**

He texted as quickly as he could:

 **cant, have homework** **☹**

“We should look into a weekend trip searching for apartments, since ADAM IS SO BUSY TEXTING HIS GIRLFRIEND!!” Beth suddenly screeched among the sea of feasting students.

A few of them looked up, others gasped, and others laughed and rolled their eyes before resuming their meals and conversations.

Adam froze halfway through reading Nigel’s next text, and he glared up at Beth.

“Do you have to keep mentioning that out loud, especially? It’s embarrassing, Beth!” Adam looked around the busy cafeteria, avoiding majority of the curious glances and questioning facial expressions.

Beth gave him a sarcastic smile from ear-to-ear which made her look almost feline-like.

“What’s embarrassing is how attached and married you are to your damn phone lately. Why don’t you just make out with it?”

Kelly bit into her sandwich and rolled her eyes.

“Children, can you please not do this here, now? I’m trying to eat, still.”

Adam frowned at them both, but looked down at Nigel’s text before his screen went dark to save power.

 _Sent at 12:31 PM  
_ **do it at my place, darling, i dont mind**

What? Nigel was offering Adam to let him come over and complete his homework? This didn’t make any sense, but Adam felt the need to accept the offer.

**so you want me to come over afterschool and do my homework at your place?**

“And he goes on, and on, and on, and texts on…” He heard Beth and Kelly sigh simultaneously, both wearing bored facial expressions as he hurriedly texted Nigel.

 _Just Now  
_ **yes. try to leave before your last class ends though. the more time we have together, the better, gorgeous**

It sounded like a good plan to Adam, and he could be back before dinner.

He stood up, exiting the cafeteria to call his parents and let them know he was going to be staying after school for two hours to complete some homework.

………………………………….

**2:18 PM**

As Nigel had suggested, Adam left his last class more than half an hour early and he waited in the parking lot for Nigel to come get him. Nigel drove quickly, and they were both back at Nigel’s apartment in less than ten minutes.

Adam enjoyed Nigel’s apartment now that he could get a better and clearer look at it in the daytime. The entire place was spotless, and Adam smelled and saw fresh food cooking on Nigel’s clean white stove. The black pot sat, steam billowing out from the sides of the lid over it, and it caused Adam’s stomach to rumble. He placed a hand over his stomach bashfully while Nigel hung their coats in his organized hallway closet.

He kissed Adam’s cheek softly, and made his way to the kitchen to check on his food, and pour Adam a fresh glass of water.

“Make yourself at home, darling, I’m just gonna check on the food.”

Adam smiled, feeling the heat of the apartment warm him up after the heat from Nigel’s kiss coursed through his body, first.

“Okay, I’m just gonna sit in the living room and do my American History homework.”

Adam watched Nigel taste some of the food from the pot, and he hummed and nodded.

“Are you sure you won’t stay for supper?” He asked as he closed the lid over the pot again and turned to smile at Adam caringly, eyes glittering pleasantly.

Adam grabbed his textbook from his knapsack, and placed it open over his lap after smiling at Nigel politely.

“I can’t, Nigel, but thanks for offering.”

Nigel winked, “Suit yourself, darling.”

Adam tried focusing on his work, and he read the text in his mind for a few minutes, trying to ignore Nigel’s gaze upon him, then the noises he made from within the kitchen as he put away some dishes.

Finally, Nigel placed a hand over Adam’s shoulder and bent down to brush his nose against his ear.

“I’m going to take a quick shower, gorgeous, just continue your readings, you’re doing perfect.”

He pressed a soft kiss to Adam’s ear, and Adam chuckled and nodded, trying to get lost in his book, but his thoughts and desires betrayed him. He was stuck on the same paragraph for over twenty-minutes. He couldn’t help but think of what it would look like and feel like to take a shower with Nigel…he wondered how good Nigel looked naked, and he suddenly thought of his own young, small body, pressed up against Nigel’s as a thin stream of water and cum flowed between them, past their drenched thighs…

He almost didn’t hear Nigel emerge from his warm shower.

“I remember school when I was your age; we didn’t have half as much homework as you guys, haha.”

Nigel was dressed in only black trousers, and he was rubbing his wet hair with a blue and white striped towel. This was more than a fairly pleasant sight for Adam, and his teenage hormones began racing and flaring with all sorts of scenarios of what could happen with them both in this current state. Adam began shifting in the sofa seat uncomfortably.

When he couldn’t take Nigel’s half-nude form any longer, Adam set aside his textbook, and stood up to walk away, but Nigel stopped him by pressing a large hand in the center of his chest, and he gave him a light shove, making him fall back down into his seat.

“Don’t move, continue your work,” he began with a smile Adam could only call sadistic, “don’t want to flunk your courses, now do you?”

Pouting moodily, but not arguing, Adam continued reading his course book. He tapped his fingers in irritation, eyes flying up and down over the same boring paragraph he was stuck on. He thought he heard Nigel mutter something, and then he suddenly felt a chill go down his spine. It felt as if a finger had just stroked his spine…his head and gaze snapped up and he looked at Nigel who was standing next to him by the armrest of the sofa.

“What’re you doing?” Adam demanded half-suspiciously, half-aroused.  
  
Nigel only offered him a confused look, and Adam was certain he was toying with him and playing the part of an innocent bystander.

“You know exactly what I mean, Nigel! You-” he was cut off by the sensation of a warm pair of hands stroking his thighs and coming dangerously close to his erect cock. As suddenly as the touch was there, it soon was gone and Adam regained his ability to speak.

“That…you keep doing that…” He breathed softly.

“Hmm?” Nigel began, “Oh, do you mean this?”

Before Adam could protest more, the hands were on him again, accompanied by Nigel’s hot lips which left sizzling, tingling sensations dancing everywhere they landed on Adam’s skin. The spidery touch of Nigel’s hand gently stroked his neck and traveled lazily onto his torso, and eventually his fingers cheekily tweaked Adam’s nipples through his shirt.

“Oh my…yes…that…just that….” Adam whispered wantonly, not ashamed of the noises flying out of his mouth uncontrollably and naturally. 

“Well get on with your readings and homework, Adam,” Nigel replied coyly, “I thought you wanted this to be a focus on your education and time well spent?”

The meaning of his words made Adam fear for his education and future, so he sighed, turning back to his History textbook. He couldn’t concentrate, however; it seemed as if every sound in the room had been magnified by an imaginary microphone and speaker, and Adam felt himself being driven insane, slowly. The ticking of Nigel’s watch, the buzzing of the fridge, the sound of Adam’s own thumping heart against his ribcage, and the soft sounds of Nigel breathing calmly. Without a word spoken, Nigel rose to his feet and circled around Adam; the slow, steady patter of each foot as he walked only increased Adam’s tension.

Leaning down and pressing himself against Adam’s cheek and ear, Nigel whispered, “Recite out loud.”

Adam felt his shoulders roll instinctively, and he exposed his neck, but it was ignored and left untouched. He turned his head back towards his textbook, feeling ashamed, and took a small glance at Nigel. Nigel’s eyes were on the book resting in his lap, so Adam forced himself to read out loud.

“Conservationism is the attempt to manage natural resources so that human users, including future generations, derive maximum benefit over a long period of ti-ha--!”

Adam’s sentence cut off abruptly when he felt Nigel’s mouth begin to suckle his earlobe gently and sensually. Pausing, Nigel nipped Adam’s ear in a wordless order to continue, so Adam took a deep breath and attempted to continue.

“The emergence of the discipline of forestry in the last century was one of important development in conservationism,” he began shakily, feeling fingers tracing and ghosting along both of his nipples, slowly and carelessly circling the hardening tips, and pinching roughly when he had stopped his reading again.

“Another was the national parks movement...” he finished his sentence in a strong, loud moan as Nigel’s lips tenderly kissed and nibbled at the crook of his neck. Adam began breathing a little faster and hurriedly started reading the next part of the textbook passage before Nigel could notice the lull.

“…In 1872 the U.S. Congress passed the Yellowstone Park Act to create the first national park…”

Adam moved his arms up as a gentle tugging came from Nigel. Adam looked down to find that the older man had nimbly undone his shirt buttons during the last sentence, and was now pulling his shirt clean off his body. The room suddenly felt a lot cooler with his shirt gone, and Adam knew he was going to have an increasingly difficult time focusing on his readings now that Nigel’s mouth and lips were exploring his naked flesh, and his fingers had more of his nipples and chest to his direct, close access.

With much effort, Adam began reading the next paragraph, “The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, was supposed to resolve—oh-f-fuck!” He was interrupted by the soft, smooth surface of Nigel’s thumbs rolling over his nipples, but he bit down on his tongue and urged himself to continue, not wanting the physical attention to die down anytime soon.

“…resolve th-this dilemma by al-allowing many states to m-m-move together when th-they reg-g-gulated greenhouse gases, but it fell far sh-short when…oh…god…” His words died down when Nigel’s warm hands took his hardened nipples, pinching and soothing them out, and while one of his hands was busy with one nipple, Nigel lowered his head, and with the guide of his other hand, he took Adam’s other nipple in his mouth, suckling deeply. Soon, his mouth freed the nipple, which stung and burned in the cool air, and his lips and tongue began mapping out biting kisses along Adam’s collarbone and shoulder. Adam let his eyes roll back into his head, and he leaned his head back onto Nigel’s chest just to enjoy the attention lavished onto his responsive body, when he was brought back to the apartment living room by a sharp slap, and then rough pinch to the nipple Nigel had sucked lovingly and tenderly a moment ago.

Nigel growled, “Did I say you could stop?”

Squirming and whimpering from the sensitivity of his nipple and throbbing body, Adam continued, “Third world countries such as China, Brazil, and India, undertook no obligations, arguing th-that the problem had been caused by-”

“Fun.” Nigel laughed out his interruption, and nipped Adam’s right shoulder.

“Nigel, why am I doing this?” Adam complained when he had had enough of the teasing.

Nigel didn’t seem to really have a good answer planned, and he shrugged, “Just because.”

This deeply pissed Adam off, and he was sure to show it as he frowned darkly at his lover.

“Well, if there isn’t any purpose in doing it, I won’t be doing it anymore!” And with that uttered, he turned around and roughly kissed the older man.

Nigel was surprised by Adam’s forward aggression, but he allowed himself to be pressed onto his back as Adam pressed them to the carpeted floor, taking control for once.

Adam’s tongue had little opposition and fear as it snaked its way into Nigel’s mouth to engage in a sexually frustrated and furious entanglement that left them both gasping for breath within seconds. Adam pushed back to get a good look at Nigel underneath him before relishing in the control and claiming Nigel’s mouth again whilst his hands roamed Nigel’s naked chest. Nigel enjoyed the command he had allowed Adam to take, but he didn’t want him to gain the upper hand for too long. He bucked his hips strongly in an upward roll, momentarily catching Adam off-guard, and Nigel took advantage of this and rolled them over so Adam was beneath his body, trapped.

They both were now painfully hard as they once again took up their passionate, ardent kissing, and Nigel took the opportunity to grind their erections and show Adam what pleasure really was. The sweet friction was unlike anything Adam had experienced before; sure he was getting used to being aroused lately, thanks to Nigel, but this feeling was brand new, unfamiliar, exhilarating, and excellent. Adam felt his back arching up with pleasure as he tried in vain to break Nigel’s grip and give himself the release he so desperately needed.

Nigel stopped his movements, and he held Adam’s head in both his hands, looking deeply into his lust-filled eyes.

“Tell me what you want, Adam.” His breath came out in short pants over Adam’s flushed, swollen-kissed lips, and Adam’s arousal-fueled eyes opened and closed frantically as he tried answering Nigel back.

“Nigel…”, he began weakly, before Nigel pressed one chaste kiss to his lips.

“Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it, Adam.” Nigel began growing a bit impatient, but Adam didn’t know what to say or how to answer.

He felt his arousal dying down slowly, and fear and worry wormed its way through his mind instead, and he turned his head and face away from Nigel, and looked at the coffee table a few feet away from them in silence, willing himself not to cry in front of Nigel.

Adam didn’t know what he wanted from Nigel. Things had progressed far too quickly, and it had all happened in such a short amount of time that it was difficult to get used to and admit to.  Adam loved the physical attraction he shared with Nigel, but he didn’t know where else to take it for the time being. He wasn’t one to ask, either, and he felt his inexperience was only going to upset and frustrate Nigel.

Above him, Nigel chuckled, though it wasn’t a cold or cruel chuckle. With his index and middle finger, Nigel brushed a few loose, messy strands of hair away from the side of Adam’s eyes, and he kissed the younger man’s forehead.

“I’m a man, but I’m not a bad man, Adam...” he breathed deeply, and gently rolled to the side off Adam’s warm body.

“…I won’t just take advantage of you like that.”

Adam turned and looked at him, concern flashing through his eyes.

“Until you can confidently tell me what you want, I won’t take you to my bed.”

Nigel smiled lazily at the ceiling above them, and tapped a hand on his own chest a few times, deep in thought.

Adam rolled over to rest on his stomach, pink cheeks flaring even deeper when Nigel met his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Nigel offered him a warm, comforting smile, wrinkles creasing the sides of his eyes.

“Don’t be.”

He leaned up and kissed the tip of Adam’s nose gently, before helping them both off the floor, brushing Adam’s clothes of any dirt and gently holding his hands in his own as he pressed him back to sit down.

“Do your readings, darling.”

He left Adam on the sofa to resume his work, while he busied himself in the kitchen with the meal he planned on eating, alone.


End file.
